Personally, I do. Some say that there is not simply because of the two-three star system. However, I think that both stars could have planets orbiting with life. I also think that they could have already came in contact with one another. Reason being, Alpha A&B are both older then our sun by a few billion years. They could already be here too. I really couldn't see us finding another planet and not taking it over if we were capable. Just like we did the new world or what is now known as the US. So maybe if they were here then we would know it.

They are about 4.5 light years away. If they have found a way to go a third the speed of light then they could get here in just over 14 years.


What does anyone else think about this?
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Allen

what is the present speculation about the possibilty of one or more planets in orbit around alpha centauri a or b? what are the results of hubble's most recent look at this star system? has hubble looked at alpha centauri since its recent upgrade of its optics?

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The problems with having life around double stars are many. If the stars are close, the orbits of the planets tend to become unstable because they are no longer sitting in a simple spherical gravitational well. Orbits like this would be unstable on such a timescale that the planet would not have time to form life before it was hurled out into space or sent into a non-life sustaining orbit. In addition to this, the seasons on such a planet would be extremely complicated and extremely unpleasant. You can see the differences that occur on earth simply because of an axial tilt. Imagine if you had two stars whirling around, moving back and forth with respect to the planet.

Alpha Centauri A and B are not extremely close to one another (they vary between 11 and 35 AU separation), but they are certainly close enough that any planet would feel the effects of both stars. I've done research on such systems, but I don't know offhand the stability timescale for such a system. When I get back to school, I'll try to look it up for you.

Of the two, Alpha Centauri A would be the most likely to have a life-giving planet. Other factors to consider are increased asteroid impacts due to the presence of the other star, the large x-ray flux from the corona of the Alpha Centauri B, the formation scenario (was it a capture or did they form from a single protoplanetary disk?), and planet migration. We know very little about the requirements for life, so anything I can tell you is mostly guesswork. It's possible that life takes on different forms for which the requirements are not so strict.

If we suppose that intelligent life did evolve there, there is no question that they would be able to travel to earth. We are currently able to travel to Alpha Centauri if we so choose (though the trip would probably be multi-generational and extremely expensive in terms of resources). In fact, as Richard Feynmann pointed out, if intelligent life had evolved anywhere in our galaxy in the last billion or so years, they should have reached earth by now. Make of that what you will.

quote:

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Originally posted by Bobo
what is the present speculation about the possibilty of one or more planets in orbit around alpha centauri a or b? what are the results of hubble's most recent look at this star system? has hubble looked at alpha centauri since its recent upgrade of its optics?

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a 5 year study carried out with the coude echelle spectrometer on the 1.5 metre telescope at eso's la silla observatory concluded that no planet larger than 2.5m of jupiter orbited centauri A and no planet larger than 3.5m of jupiter orbited centauri B additional plausible assumptions however lower the maximum masses for any planets in the system to less than 0.6 the mass of jupiter
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Yep, the good old star-wobble detection method. I don't remember which team refined the process, but yes they can use radial velocity of the star to detect .6mJ planets now (extrasolar planets the size of Saturn).

Still gotta wait for the interferometers to get visual images of those extrasolar planets though..

could any one refer me to any web sites related to alpha centauri. i am unable to locate any information regarding hubble's efforts to see anything. according to dan golden we are in the process of looking {that was in 1992}.there must be information on this subject its such a fascinating possibility. please somebody help.

maybe

quote:

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Originally posted by Allen
Reason being, Alpha A&B are both older then our sun by a few billion years.

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some good sites discussing this idea

http://homepage.sunrise.ch/homepage/schatzer/Alpha-Centauri.html

http://www.solstation.com/47ly-ns.htm

http://exobio.ucsd.edu/Space_Sciences/zones.htm

http://www.princeton.edu/~willman/planetary_systems/

http://www.solstation.com/life.htm