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Proxima B - To probe or not to probe?


To proxima B or not to prxima B?  

11 members have voted

  1. 1. To proxima B or not to prxima B?

    • Yes, let's get cracking
      6
    • Yeah, but wait for better technology
      4
    • No way, we should fear what's out there
      1


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Given the "success" of my falling scaff pole thread, don't hold you breath for those scientists.

 

Wait a bit longer and the discovery channel or nat geo will knock out a programme about it - they're often quite sharp when something like this happens.

 

Hmm... I'm not sure that will be any better. I wasted an hour of my life watching 'Horizon' the other day about the possibility they had discovered a new particle at the LHC. In the end...

 

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...they hadn't!

 

I felt like sueing the BBC for wasted time!

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Not sure there is much debris in interstellar space. Unless it's a spanner dropped by some aliens, it's only likely to be stuff we sent. Which as far as I'm aware only currently consists of the Voyager craft. But then we haven't been there yet so we don't really know.

 

Do you know how much damage a fleck of debris such as a paint chip would do at the velocities required to reach Proxima B?

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At that speed I think I read they would be annihilated and experienced as radiation. Which might be dangerous to humans but not to properly shielded components of a probe. Tho I'm no scientist. I'm sure one will be along soon and confirm this (or not).

 

The impact goes both ways. If it literally destroys the atom and turns it to radiation (which doesn't sound physically plausible to me) then it will also do a huge amount of damage to the probe.

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At that speed I think I read they would be annihilated and experienced as radiation. Which might be dangerous to humans but not to properly shielded components of a probe. Tho I'm no scientist. I'm sure one will be along soon and confirm this (or not).

 

Can you rephrase? What would be annihilated?

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Do you know how much damage a fleck of debris such as a paint chip would do at the velocities required to reach Proxima B?

 

As previously stated - where is such a paint chip coming from to collide with a vehicle that is traveling faster than anything we have ever painted before?

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Given the "success" of my falling scaff pole thread, don't hold you breath for those scientists.

 

Wait a bit longer and the discovery channel or nat geo will knock out a programme about it - they're often quite sharp when something like this happens.

 

We never learned the dimensions of your base so we couldn't determine the Centre of Gravity of your system to make the calculation :)

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As previously stated - where is such a paint chip coming from to collide with a vehicle that is traveling faster than anything we have ever painted before?

 

A chip of paint is an example. Substitute for space dust. Do you know how much damage space dust the size of a paint chip would do to a spacecraft at those velocities?

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The impact goes both ways. If it literally destroys the atom and turns it to radiation (which doesn't sound physically plausible to me) then it will also do a huge amount of damage to the probe.

 

I think it's matter into energy and all that. But like I said I'm no scientist. I just know what I read in my regular magazine subscriptions, and tend to believe that over 'lies to children' that are commonly taught in schools and are never unlearned unless you go on to study degree level science.

 

---------- Post added 25-08-2016 at 12:38 ----------

 

A chip of paint is an example. Substitute for space dust. Do you know how much damage space dust the size of a paint chip would do to a spacecraft at those velocities?

 

And the space dust is coming from...? It's interstellar space. Beyond a solar system that has amassed out of such dust. As far as scientists are aware there isn't much of that. just a few atoms , particles and ions distributed through the interstellar medium.

 

https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-mathematical-odds-that-a-spaceship-travelling-near-light-speed-will-crash-into-a-planet-small-asteroid-or-other-space-debris-if-it-travels-in-a-straight-path-for-10-years

Edited by DnAuK
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