Can there be alien life in the neighbors? Looking for planets around Alpha Centauri

Breakthrough Initiative, Saber Astronautic and NASA’s JPL have announced the Toliman project, a project that aims to find out if the nearest stars have planets that can sustain life

Artist illustration of a super-Earth planet. Credit: NASA Ames / JPL-Caltech / Tim Pyle

Can life survive around the nearest stars?

In collaboration with the Breakthrough Initiative, Saber Astronautic and NASA’s jet propulsion lab, Professor Peter Tothil is running Toliman, a project that aims to find out if the closest stars have planets (planets) that can sustain life.

A mission to discover new planets that could potentially sustain life in the country’s nearest neighbor, Alpha Centauri, was announced on November 17, 2021.

The proposed telescope project will look for planets in the populated area (“golden zone” where temperatures can allow liquid surface water in rocky planets) around the star system that is only four light-years from Earth.

Work on the project began in April this year. Scientists from the University of Sydney, in collaboration with Breakthrough Initiatives in California, Saber Astronautics in Australia and NASA’s jet propulsion laboratory, have called the Tuliman project, the ancient name of the Arabic alpha Centauri.

“Our closest star neighbors – the Proxima Centauri system and in particular the alpha Centauri star that belongs to it – are proving to be very, very interesting,” said Dr. Pete Warden, general manager of Breakthrough Initiatives. “.

A look at a simulation of what Toliman’s telescope was able to see from binary star Alpha Centauri through its diffractive pupil. Credit: Peter Tuthill / University of Sydney

Project Manager Peter Tothhill of the Sydney Institute of Astronomy at the University of Sydney is passionate about this new window to the universe.

“Astronomers have access to amazing technologies that allow us to find thousands of planets orbiting stars in vast expanses of the galaxy,” he said. “But we know almost nothing about the backyard of our sky.”

“It’s a modern problem: we’re like urbanites who are proficient in the Internet and their connections on social networks are world – wide, but we do not know anyone on our street.”

A look at an animated simulation of the Alpha Centauri system through the Toliman telescope. Credit: The University of Sydney

This dead space in our local knowledge has important consequences, he said.

“Getting to know our planetary neighbors is of paramount importance,” Professor Tothhill said. “These neighboring planets are the ones where we have the best chances of finding and analyzing atmospheres, surface chemistry and perhaps even biosphere fingerprints – the tentative signs of life.”

“Our closest neighbor, Alpha Centauri, is a triangular star with two stars very similar to our Sun. One or both of them may host temperate planets, and as for the third star – the red dwarf Proxima Centauri, it is already believed to have one planet, discovered in 2016. , In the “Golden Track”.

The project received support from Breakthrough Initiatives, a group of science and technology programs engaged in the search for alien life. The programs were established by investor and philanthropist in the fields of science and technology Yuri Milner.

A look at an animated simulation of the Alpha Centauri system through the Toliman telescope. Credit: The University of Sydney

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