[LINK] "Alpha Centauri Hunt Intensifies"

[rfmcdonald]

Centauri Dreams has an exciting post suggesting that current planet-hunting technologies are almost up to the task of detecting terrestrial planets orbiting at least one of the stars in the neighbouring Alpha Centauri trinary.

[Astronomer Greg] Laughlin writes about the search in Alpha Centauri: Market Outperform, noting that “…when HARPS is working full bore on a bright quiet star, it can drill right down into the habitable zone.” Note, too, that Alpha Centauri is visible almost year-round from La Silla. Laughlin plugs in values for Centauri B’s habitable zone and creates data sets for differing values of planetary mass in the system. He then extrapolates from this to determine where the Geneva team might be now that it has upped its frequency of observations.

The results: A 4.6 Earth-mass planet in an optimally habitable orbit around Centauri B might be “…on the verge of current ‘announceability.’” A smaller 2.3 Earth-mass planet in the same zone would not be visible yet, requiring another year and a half of observations. If we’re anxious to find not a ’super Earth’ but a true Earth analog, then, silence on the Centauri front for another eighteen months may, as Laughlin suggests, be good news.

Me, I'm still hoping for Tirane.