Planet Hunt: Astronomers are Searching the Alpha Centauri
The closest to the Solar System is the Alpha Centauri's star system with a distance of 4.37 light years; astronomers are conducting a search for planets in the Alpha Centauri as the ESO has signed an agreement to adapt a large telescope instrumentation for the search.
The very large telescope instrumentation will be in Chile to conduct a search for planets, being our nearest interstellar neighbor the Alpha Centauri is of three stars, out of which only the red dwarf Proxima Centauri is well known to have a planet reported Scientific American.
Astronomers have plans to study the planet and perhaps there could be possibilities for life to exist. In order to study the two stars expensive instruments are required and it is certainly not going to be an easy task. Finding a planet in the neighboring interstellar could not take place in one day.
Considering the fact of the astronomers contribution to space over the past years, there are possibilities that they could find another planet through this mission. Even though it might take years, they will be able to study new patterns or probably other discoveries.
According to Space, the Alpha Centauri is 2.4 times closer that the nearest sun-like star. It was the discovery of Proxima B that increased the interest in the Alpha Centauri System. NASA on the other hand are continuing to work on other telescope projects like WFIRST and LUVOIR, this will help to pick out closer and even distant exoplanets.
The stars that are in the Alpha Centauri are believed to have an overpowering glare and astronomers are coming up with solutions to make things easier. The team will use a small deformable mirror to suppress light from two sources at once. A coronagraph will be built into a telescope to suppress the photons appearing from a distant star's glow.
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