What do you think about the super flare of Proxima Centauri?

[alfa015]

Hi guys, I hope you are doing well

So.. the other day I read that Proxima Centauri released a huge flare last year, decreasing the chances of existing life in Proxima b

What do you think about it? I also read that the flare lasted 2 minutes.. what if the flare happened in the part of the star that was not facing Proxima b? Proxima Centauri rotates every 82 days.. I think that maybe the flare might have been released on the oposite side towards empty space (or other exoplanets)

I recently made a new video on the top 5 potentially habitable exoplanets closest to Earth in 2018 (here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pd6smyz2tUk&list=PL3RiFKfZj3pv1ZqpFxuZinoGtUGEO ankw ) in which I included Proxima b because it is still considered the one with the highest earth similarity index. Do you think that Proxima b should not be considered a potentially habitable exoplanet anymore? Should the target of the Starshot project be changed?

[xelasnave]

I think that the advanced civilization on the planet of interest were constructing a Dyson Sphere and it colapsed causing the flare.

There may be an advanced race well ahead of us who moved underground to escape these flares which they may have seen coming.

Lets not give up.

Anything we do to look for life must be worthwhile but I really do not know why we are not sending missions to the various places in our solar system that are somewhat reasonable prospects.

Even on Mars ...we should look deeper under the surface...as that possibilty needs to be investigated and ruled out or in...

I look forward to looking at your video later.
Thanks for letting us know about it.
Alex

[astroron]

Proxima Cent is a very old and very active flare star,possibly been around well before our sun was born and will be around long after our sun is reduced to a white dwarf,planetary nebula.That proxima b is twenty times closer to proxima A than Mercury is to our sun and would have been receiving flares of various magnitudes for billions of years.
The large ones are not unusual and are probably quite prevalent, that we have spotted one only adds more data against any "life" on Proxima b
Proxima b is like our moon tidily locked to Proxima A, so the face pointing proxima A would have had maybe many millions of flares battering its surface over it's life time.
I reckon you can strike Proxima b of your list.

Cheers

[astroron]

By the way the only real thing that has it going for it is that it is in the Goldilocks zone,not to hot not to cold, etc.
The fact is that the more data that comes in about Proxima b, the less of a chance it becomes of habitability.
Cheers

[ZeroID]

Very cool pix, very cool indeed. that third one, the cloud formation is awesome.

No flight hours here but I'm only 4 weeks away from retiring. Does that count for anything ?

[alfa015]

indeed, i agree with you, active flare stars are a problem, but i think that if proxima b had a magnetic field stronger than earth, those flares wouldn't be much of a problem

[astroron]

A planet tidily locked would have a job of retaining a magnetic field.
This could be of interest. :)

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2017/an-earth-like-atmosphere-may-not-survive-proxima-b-s-orbit
Cheers:thumbsup:

[AussieTrooper]

This is a fair point. Mars cannot be conclusively ruled out. The failing of the Martian magnetic field, with the resultant loss of atmosphere, cooling and sterilisation of the surface would have been a slow process, potentially allowing millions of years for bacteria to evolve around it.
There are bacteria living inside rocks in the dry valleys of Antarctica. No need for sunlight or direct contact with the atmosphere.

Go deep enough and there may still be liquid water in those rocks.

It may be an increasingly remote longshot, but certainly cannot be ruled out at this stage.

The difference between this, and other candidates like Europa, is that we are reasonably certain that in the past, Mars did have a climate that could have sustained life.