Abstract
The first fictional journey to Alpha Centauri seems to have been made in Friedrich Wilhelm Mader’s 1911 novel Wunderwelten, translated into English in 1930 as Distant Worlds: The Story of a Voyage to the Planets. Mader’s huge spaceship was a sphere 146 feet in diameter that used obscure antigravity techniques to travel to Alpha Centauri at several times the speed of light. Other writers had attempted interstellar journeys, in particular the French authors C. L. Defontenay in Star ou Psi de Cassiopée: Histoire Merveilleuse de l’un des Mondes de l’Espace (1854), which also used antigravity in its explorations of the planetary system Psi Cassiopeia, and Camille Flammarion in Lumen (1872), a novel featuring a journey to Capella. But Mader’s starship Sannah was the forerunner of all of today’s science fictional journeys to the nearest stellar system.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsPreview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
p.32: “fourth millennium B.C. temples there”—As noted in Richard Hinckley Allen, Star Names: Their Lore and Meaning (New York: Dover Publications, 1963), p. 153 (reprint of the 1899 original). Also noted in “Sounds of a Star: Acoustic Oscillations in Solar-Twin ‘Alpha Cen A’ Observed from La Silla by Swiss Team,” press release from the European Southern Observatory, June 28, 2001.
p.34: “cooler than the Sun.”— For a quick view of stellar types, see Robert Zubrin’s Entering Space: Creating a Spacefaring Civilization (New York: Tarcher/Putnam, 1999), pages 231–33. For a more detailed study, see William J. Kaufman’s Universe (New York: W. H. Freeman, 1985), a textbook with much background information.
p.34: “seven times smaller than the Sun.” —As reported by Robert Roy Britt in “Detailed Measures Taken of Closest Star System, Alpha Centauri,” posted on www.space.com on March 17, 2003.
p.35: “ranging from -18.1 to -20.6.”—Drawn from information developed by Robert J. Sawyer, who based it on the work of Edward F. Guinan of the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics at Villanova University. Sawyer used these orbital mechanics in his science fiction novel Illegal Alien ( New York: Ace Books, 1997 ).
p. 36: “an independent star happening to pass close by.” —Asimov discusses the visual effects of the Centauri system in his Alpha Centauri (New York: Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co.,1976),101–105.
p.36: “within the Alpha Centauri system.”—For more on Proxima’s radial velocity and its implications, see Robert Matthews and Gerard Gilmore, “Is Proxima Really in Orbit About Alpha CEN AB?” Royal Astronomical Society Monthly Notices 261, no. 2 (1993), pages L5 – L7.
p.36: “cannot be ruled out at least around Alpha Centauri A.”—See M. Barbieri, F. Marzari, and H. Scholl, “Formation of Terrestrial Planets in Close Binary Systems: the Case of Alpha Centauri A,” Astronomy ~r Astrophysics 396 (2002): 219 – 24. Available online at http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/o2o9u8.
p.36: “stable planetary orbits within binary star systems.”—Alan Hale, “Nearby Solar-Type Stars as Candidates for Interstellar Robotic Missions,” Journal of the British Interplanetary Society 49 (1996), 150 – 54.
p.37: “Paul Wiegert and Matt Holman in 1997.”—Paul Wiegert and Matt Holman, “The Stability of Planets in the Alpha Centauri System,” Astronomical Journal 113 (1997): 1445 – 50.
p.37: “and, possibly, could harbor life.”—Barbieri, Marzari, and Scholl, “Formation of Terrestrial Planets.”
p.38: “data on the star field around Proxima.”—G. F. Benedict et al., “Searching for Planets Near Proxima Centauri: A Status Report.” Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society 26 (1994): 930.
p.38: “roughly half the distance between Earth and the Sun.”—A. B. Schultz et al., “A Possible Companion to Proxima Centauri,” Astronomical Journal 115 (1998): 345 – 50.
p. 38: “about 8o percent of the mass of Jupiter in nearby orbits.”—G. F. Benedict et al., “Interferometric Astrometry of Proxima Centauri and Barnard’s Star Using Hubble Space Telescope Fine Guidance Sensor 3: Detection Limits for Substellar Companions,” Astronomical Journal 118 (1999): 1086 — 1100.
p.38: “a fraction of the distance between Mercury and the Sun.”—See Michael Endl et al., “Extrasolar Terrestrial Planets: Can We Detect Them Already?” Scientific Frontiers in Research on Extrasolar Planets, ASP Conference Series, vol. 294. (2.003). The answer, incidentally, is “… not yet, but we get pretty close…” For more on habitable zones, see J. F. Kasting, D. P. Whitmire, and R. T. Reynolds, “Habitable Zones Around Main Sequence Stars,” Icarus loi (1993): 108 – 128.
p.39: “warm enough to prevent its gases from freezing out.”—The Ames work is described in Manoj Joshi, Robert Haberle, and R. Reynolds, “Simulations of the Atmospheres of Synchronously Rotating Terrestrial Planets Orbiting M Dwarfs: Conditions for Atmospheric Collapse and the Implications for Habitability,” Icarus 129 (1997), pages 450-65. See also Martin J. Heath et al., “Habitability of Planets Around Red Dwarf Stars,” Origins of Life and Evolution of the Biosphere 29 (1999), pages 405–24. For a fine overview of these findings and a discussion of related work, see Ken Croswell’s “Red, Willing and Able,” in New Scientist 169 (January, 2001), pages 28–31.
p.39: “a definitive conclusion.” —As reported in Robert Roy Britt, “Report of Earth-Sized Planet Around Another Star Premature.” Posted on www. space.com January 19, 2001. For details, see L. R. Doyle et al., “From CM Draconis to the Crowded Field BW3: Aspects of the Search for Extrasolar Planets Around Small Eclipsing Binaries,” Proceedings of Bioastronomy 99: A new Era in Bioastronomy, eds. G. M. Lemarchand and K. J. Meech, ASP Conf. Ser. vol. 213, (2000) p. 159.
p.40: “together with the whole system of life forms on which they depend.”—Stephen H. Dole and Isaac Asimov, Planets for Man (New York: Random House, 1964), 108. Dole’s RAND Corporation study is titled Habitable Planets for Man ( New York: Blaisdell, 1964 ).
p.40: “for any star or star system on our list…” — Ibid., 178.
p.41: “and not so far toward the edge to be metal-poor.” —The issue was raised by Peter D. Ward and Donald Brownlee in their book Rare Earth (New York: Copernicus Books, 2000 ).
p.41: “so-called ‘hot Jupiters’ orbiting their stars in orbits tighter than this.” Matloff tells this story in his Deep Space Probes ( Chichester, U.K.: Praxis Publishing, 2000 ), 21.
p.41: “28 percent the distance of Mercury from the Sun.”—The 55 Cancri planet was announced in Paul Butler et al., “Three New 51 Pegasi-Type Planets,” Astrophysical Journal 474 (1997)
p.42: “little effect on the possible planetary system of the other.”—Press release, “McDonald Observatory Planet Search Finds First Planet Orbiting Close-in Binary Star,” University of Texas, October 9, zooz.
p. 43: “It was a fantastic moment.”—An interview with Geoff Marcy conducted by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s media team and available on its Planet Quest Web site athttp://planetquest.jpl.nasa.govinews/marcy.html.
p.43: “exotic far-away places like Brooklyn”—Daniel S. Goldin, “Remarks as Prepared for Presentation to the Tooth Anniversary Meeting of the American Astronomical Society,” June 3, 1999. Available online at http://www.aas.org/policy/1999/GoldinTalkChicago.html.
p.44: “circling the star HD7o64z about every six years”—Press release, “Astronomers Find ‘Home from Home’-90 Light Years Away,” Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council, July 3, 2003. See also Tariq Malik, “Celestial Soulmate? Jupiter-Like Planet Found in System Similar to Ours,” www.space.com, July 3, 2003.
p. 44: “later extended by them with the discovery of a second planet.” —Press release, “UC Berkeley Astronomers Find Jupiter-Sized Planet Around Nearby Star in Big Dipper,” University of California at Berkeley, August 15, 2001.
p. 45: “it should be possible to obtain its image”—W. B. Sparks et al., “Detection of Planets with the Hubble Space Telescope Advanced Camera for Surveys,” from A New Era in Bioastronomy, 6th Bioastronomy Meeting (August 2-6,1999). Available online at http://acs.pha. jhu. edu/instrument/papers/documents/acs_planets. pdf.
p.45: “in the habitable zones around other solar systems”—Ralph McNutt, of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, provided an overview of Terrestrial Planet Finder in his presentation “Space Exploration Beyond zozo,” given at the Military and Aerospace Programmable Logic Device International Conference, 1999, and available on the Web at http://ldabs.org/richcontent/MAPLDCon99/Presentations/Ao_McNutt S.pdf.
p.46: “by examining their spectral signatures.”—For more on Life Finder, see University of Arizona astronomer Neville Woolf’s study for NASA’s Institute for Advanced Concepts, “Life Finder: Very Large Optics for the Study of Extra-Solar Terrestrial Planets.” Available at the NIAC Web site www.niac.usra.edu.
p.46: “as a colossal interferometer that combines the image from each.”—From press release, “Powerful X-Ray Astronomy Telescope Should Lead to Black Hole Exploration,” University of Colorado at Boulder (September 13, z000 ).
p.46: “the size of an automobile at the center of the Milky Way.”—For a detailed look at Cash’s x-ray interferometer, see his “X-Ray Interferometry: Ultimate Astronomical Imaging,” the final report of a Phase II study for NASA’s Institute for Advanced Concepts ( April, 2002 ). Both Phase I and II reports are available online at http://www.niac.usra.edu.
p.47: “some scientists at Princeton who know how to do that.” —This and the following quotes from Webster Cash are from a telephone interview with the astronomer on August 29, 2003.
p.49: “working with z-meter telescopes to examine infrared light.”—Betsy Mason, “Look of Life,” New Scientist 179 (July 12, 2003): 28.
p. 50: “within a range of 21 light years.”—These figures are drawn from Gregory Matloff and Eugene Mallove in their essential Starf light Handbook (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1989), and adjusted for the discoveries in 1997, 2002, and 2003 of three more stars within the 21-light year range. The newly discovered stars were all M-class dwarfs save for a single white dwarf. Matloff and Mallove go on to explain their choice of a 21-light year zone: “A starship encountering a solar system 211y removed on the day of birth of an earth-bound astronomer would radio back initial scientific data that will be newly received just in time for the starchild to analyze for her senior thesis in college!” (p. 27).
p. 50: “within a sphere with a radius of 70 light years.” —G. Vulpetti, “Problems and Perspectives in Interstellar Exploration,” Journal of the British Interplanetary Society 52 (1999): 34.
p. 50: “to create acid rain, ozone loss, and global winter.”—This theory was first suggested by astrophysicist Richard Muller and colleagues in an article in Nature. See M. Davis, P. Hut, and R. A. Muller, “Extinctions of Species by Periodic Comet Showers,” Nature 308 (1984): 715–17. The same issue saw an independent article proposing much the same theory: D. P. Whitmire and A. A. Jackson, “Are Periodic Mass Extinctions Driven by a Distant Solar Companion?” (pp. 713–15). Research on Nemesis has been summarized by Donald Goldsmith in his Nemesis: The Death-Star and Other Theories of Mass Extinction (New York: Walker and Company, 1985). See also Richard Muller’s Nemesis: The Death Star ( New York: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1988 ).
p.50: “by Edward Emerson Barnard, working at California’s Lick Observatory.”—E. E. Barnard, “A Small Star with Large Proper Motion,” Astronomical Journal 29 (1916): 181 – 83.
p. 51: “and Groombridge 1618 (a K star 15 light years away).”—John H. Mauldin offers a good discussion of local targets in his Prospects for Interstellar Travel, from which these numbers are drawn. The book is Volume 80 in the American Astronautical Society’s Science and Technology Series (San Diego, Calif.: Univelt, 1992). The discussion on nearby stars begins on p. 139.
p.52: “and grains of sand begin to look like torpedoes”—Charles Pellegrino, Flying to Valhalla ( New York: William Morrow and Co., 1993 ).
p.52: “some scientists argue that Voyager 1 has already reached the termination shock, a view that is still controversial.”—Two papers published in late 2003 define the debate: see S. M. Krimigis et al., “Voyager 1 Exited the Solar Wind at a Distance of —85 AU from the Sun,” Nature 426 (2003): 45-48; and F. B. McDonald et al., “Enhancements of Energetic Particles Near the Heliospheric Termination Shock,” Nature 426 (2003): 48–51. The two papers come to different conclusions using the same data, suggesting that the shape of the termination shock may be more complicated than was originally supposed.
p. 53: “measuring its impact upon the spacecraft’s skin with its plasma wave instrument.”—For more on interplanetary dust, see Eberhard Grun, Harald Kruger, and Markus Landgraf, “Dust Measurements in the Outer Solar System,” http://arXiv.org, astro-ph/9902036 v 1(February 2, 1999). For the specifics on Voyager’s dust measurements, see D. A. Gurnett et al., “Micron-sized Dust Particles Detected in the Outer Solar System by the Voyager 1 and z Plasma Wave Instruments,” Geophys. Res. Lett. 24 (1997): 3125–28.
p. 54: “any entering ship will be blasted.” —Telephone interview with Stephen D. Howe, April 22, 2003.
p.54: “—our solar system seems to be in a pocket of unusually sparse material).” —A. R. Martin writes about interstellar dust concentrations in “Bombardment by Interstellar Material and Its Effects on the Vehicle,” Project Daedalus Final Report (journal of the British Interplanetary Society, 1978 ): S116 – S121.
p.55: “might have made the formation of life impossible.”—These speculations are from Mauldin, Prospects, 102.
p. 55: “to protect the vehicle”—Martin, “Bombardment,” Sn9.
p. 56: “during the few hours available for planetary observation.” —Alan Bond, “Project Daedalus: Target System Encounter Protection,” in Project Daedalus Final Report (Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, 1978), 5123–S125.
p. 56: “to deflect or destroy the object”— Matloff and Mallove, Startlight,170.
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2004 Springer Science+Business Media New York
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Gilster, P. (2004). The Target: Alpha Centauri and Other Nearby Stars. In: Centauri Dreams. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-3894-0_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-3894-0_2
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4419-1818-5
Online ISBN: 978-1-4757-3894-0
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive