Alpha Centauri facts

While investigating facts about Alpha Centauri Planets and Alpha Centauri Game, I found out little known, but curios details like:

A billionaire is plotting to propel thousands of miniature satellites at 20% the speed of light by aiming minutes-long 100-gigawatt laser pulses at light sails as early as the 2040s, to arrive at Proxima B (the nearest Earthlike planet in the Goldilocks Zone of Alpha Centauri) by the 2060s

how long would it take to get to alpha centauri?

With the cost of $367 Billion, a nuclear pulse powered interstellar spaceship can be built with 1968 technology to reach Alpha Centauri in 133 years; Achieving a top speed of 3.3% speed of light.

What constellation is alpha centauri in?

In my opinion, it is useful to put together a list of the most interesting details from trusted sources that I've come across answering what if alpha centauri went supernova. Here are 22 of the best facts about Alpha Centauri Distance and Alpha Centauri B I managed to collect.

what type of star is alpha centauri?

1. The Sagan Planet Walk - a 1.2km, 1:5bn scale representation of the solar system in Ithaca, NY - was expanded in 1997 to include Alpha Centauri (the closest neighboring star). It is located at the Imiloa Astronomy Center at the University of Hawaii, making it the world's largest exhibition.

2. NASA is working on a warp drive that could get us to Alpha Centauri in 2 weeks.

3. A project called 'Breakthrough Starshot' develops concepts for a tiny spaceship that should speed up to about 25% the speed of light and should be capable to reach our closest neighbour star Alpha Centauri in 20 years

4. The light from the Sun takes 8 minutes to get here, while the next nearest star Alpha Centauri takes four years. Since Andromedia Galaxy is 2.5 Million light years away, what we are seeing is what it looked like during the start of the Earth's Pleistocene Epoch.

5. Detecting gravitational waves is like measuring the distance from Earth to Alpha Centauri accurate to within the width of a human hair

6. With existing technology humans could build an interstellar starship capable of reaching Alpha Centauri in only 43 years.

7. A mission to the closest star (Alpha Centauri) would take 100 years to reach at 4.5% the speed of light and take another 4.4 years for the data to reach Earth. The conceptual mission was called Project Longshot and was developed in 1988 to use a nuclear fission reactor for power.

8. About project Breakthrough Starshot - a program that could accelerate probes to 20% the speed of light, reaching Alpha Centauri in less than 30 years,

9. It would take New Horizons spacecraft that visited Pluto 78,000 years to reach our closest neighboring system Alpha Centauri

10. It would take a space shuttle (with a max speed of ~17,600 mph or 28,300 kph) about 165,000 years to travel to Alpha Centauri, the closest known star.

Why is alpha centauri important?

You can easily fact check why was alpha centauri renamed by examining the linked well-known sources.

The nearest solar system to our own is Alpha Centauri, which has three suns. We have only discovered one planet so far, which was confirmed in 2016.

In 30,000 years Ross 248 will become the closest star to our solar system, replacing Alpha Centauri. In 40,000 years it will be Gliese 445. Back to Alpha Centauri in 50,000 years. - source

That, view from the nearest other solar system (Alpha Centauri), our Sun would continue the zig-zag pattern of the famous W-shaped constellation Cassiopeia - source

The SETI Institute and UMass Lowell, along with professors from universities across the USA, are working on Project Blue, a telescope that will search for extraterrestrial life in the Alpha Centauri system.

If Voyager 2, Which Recently Left Our Solar System Was Redirected to Travel to Our Closest Solar System Alpha Centauri It Would Take 73,000 Years - source

When will voyager reach alpha centauri?

The centimeter-sized, gram-scaled StarChip interstellar spacecrafts designed to travel to the Alpha Centauri System at 20% the speed of light!

How far is alpha centauri?

People have come up with an idea to create light-propelled nanocrafts to send to Alpha Centauri

Alpha Centauri isn't actually a single star, but a star system

Brian Reynolds not Sid Meier's was the Lead Designer of "Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri" (SMAC) and "Sid Meier's Civilizations II"

We could send a 9-ton spacecraft to Alpha Centauri with currently developed technology. It would travel at up to 0.67x the speed of light, and take only 10 years to get there.