Planets around Alpha Centauri

[AA Institute]

Main Question or Discussion Point

An article about the likely magnitudes and feasibility of terrestrial sized rocky planets orbiting in the habitable zones in the Alpha Centauri system:

(link removed)


AA
http://www.publishedauthors.net/aa_spaceagent/

 

[GOD__AM]

Are you trying to sell that book here or something? Looks like science fiction to me.

 

[hypatia]

But didn't the Robinsons already explore that area of space?

 

[Entropy]

Alpha Centauri is a trinary system. I dought you'll find any hospitible worlds there. The orbits are just to unstable.

 

[Janus]

But didn't the Robinsons already explore that area of space?

No, that's where they were headed, but they never actually got there because they became Lost in Space

 

[Janus]

Alpha Centauri is a trinary system. I dought you'll find any hospitible worlds there. The orbits are just to unstable.

Alpha Centuari A and B have a closest approach of about 11 AU. This means that both have a zone in which they could have stable planetary orbits that extends out to 2 AU from each star. Alpha Centauri C is too small and far away to have any significant effect on the stabilty of planets around the other two (In fact, it is not even clear whether C is even gravitationally bound to A and B)

 

[Entropy]

Alpha Centuari A and B have a closest approach of about 11 AU. This means that both have a zone in which they could have stable planetary orbits that extends out to 2 AU from each star.

Of course it is possible for stable orbits to exist, but it isn't that likely.

 

[FeynmanMH42]

You would have thought being the nearest star system to ours that we'd have found planets already.

 

[TDS]

To support your statement.

I would say that the statement "One cannot see the forest for the trees" applies here.

You would have thought being the nearest star system to ours that we'd have found planets already.

 

[russ_watters]

Have people looked for planets there? I would think we could have deteced planets if they were there.

 

[tony873004]

Alpha Centauri being closest star system doesn't really benefit the detection techniques. We're not trying to "see" the planets. We're trying to measure a doppler shift in a star's velocity caused by an orbiting planet.