Voyage to Pandora: First Interstellar Space Flight

Pandora is the idyllic blue world featured in the movie Avatar. Its location is a real place: Alpha Centauri, the nearest star to our Sun and the most likely destination for our first journey beyond the solar system.

Remarkably, it's anti-matter, the science fiction fuel of choice that could take us there. Normally, it's only created in powerful jets that roar out of black holes. We can now produce small quantities in Earth-bound particle colliders. Will we journey out only to plunder other worlds? Or will we come in peace? The answer may depend on how we see Earth at that time in the distant future.

The year is 2154. Our planet has been ruined by environmental catastrophe. In the movie Avatar, greedy prospectors from Earth descend on the world of an innocent hunter-gatherer people called the Na'vi.

Their home is a lush moon far beyond our solar system called Pandora. Could such a place exist? And could our technology... and our appetite for exploration... one day send us hurtling out to reach it?

In fact, the supposed site of this fictional solar system is one of our most likely interstellar targets, until a better destination turns up. Pandora orbits a fictional gas planet called Polyphemus. Its home is a real place... Alpha Centauri... the brightest star in the southern constellation of Centaurus.

At 4.37 light years away, it's part of the closest star system to our sun. Alpha Centauri is actually two stars, A and B, one slightly larger and more luminous than our own sun, the other slightly smaller.

The two stars orbit one other, swinging in as close as Saturn is to our Sun... then back out to the distance of Pluto. This means that any outer planets in this system... anything beyond, say, the orbit of Mars... would likely have been pulled away by the companion and flung out into space.

For this reason, Alpha Centauri was not high on planet hunters' lists... until they began studying a star 45 light years away called "Gamma Cephei." It has a small companion star that goes around it every 76 years. Now, it seems... it also has at least one planet.

That world is about the size of Jupiter, and it has planet hunters excited. Perhaps two-thirds of all the stars in our galaxy are in so-called binary relationships. That means there could be many more planets in our galaxy that astronomers once assumed.

At least three teams are now conducting long-term studies of Alpha Centauri... searching for slight wobbles in the light of each companion star that could indicate the presence of planets. If they find a planet that passes in front of one of the stars, astronomers will begin intensive studies to find out what it's like.

One of their most promising tools will be the James Webb Space Telescope, scheduled for launch in 2014 or 2015. From a position a million miles away from Earth, it will deploy a sun shield the size of a tennis court, and a mirror over 21 feet wide. The largest space telescope ever built, it will offer an extraordinary new window into potential solar systems like Alpha Centauri.

With its infrared light detectors, this telescope will be able to discern the chemical composition of a planet's atmosphere... and perhaps whether it harbors a moon like Pandora.

One prominent planet hunter predicted that if a habitable world is found at Alpha Centauri, the planning for a space mission would begin immediately. Here's that star duo as seen by the Cassini spacecraft just above the rings of Saturn.

To actually get to this pair of stairs, you have to travel as far as the orbit of Saturn, then go another 30,000 times further. Put another way, if the distance to Alpha Centauri is the equivalent of New York to Chicago, then Saturn would be just... one meter away.

So far, the immense distances of space have not stopped us from launching missions into deep space. In 1977, the twin Voyager spacecraft were each sent on their way aboard Titan 3 Centaur rockets. After a series of gravitational assists from the giant outer planets, the spacecraft are now flying out of the solar system at about 40,000 miles per hour.

They are moving so quickly that they could whip around the Earth in just 45 minutes, twice as fast as the International Space Station. Voyager I has now traveled over 110 astronomical units. That's 110 times the distance from Earth to the Sun... or about 10 billion miles. But don't hold your breath.

If it was headed in the right direction, it would need another 73,000 years to travel the 273,000 astronomical units to Alpha Centauri. When it comes to space travel, we've yet to realize the dream forged by rocketeers a century ago.

[ihsanauliarahman]

"James Webb scheduled for '14 to '15"

Yeahhh about that...

[tackyinbention]

"Scheduled for launch in 2014 or 2015"
If only it did

[TunaFreeDolphinMeat]

November 2019 and James Webb yet to launch. Hope all goes well.

[Agerskiold]

I agree absolutely If we unite in peace there's no limit of what we can achieve <3

[SilverStrumer]

I really hope that we can come-up with a way to send maybe Voyager 4 to a star-system within months and give back some images. I honestly want to see what these exo-planets look like compared to our own and not just portraits from artist's impressions.

[lukahead]

I wish we could all get along on earth :( I believe that the discovery of life outside our solar system would galvanize the human race into uniting together and working hard to improve our precious little planet. We need to spread out into the solar system, it is there for us, let's take it. Begin something special, cast our cultural differences aside and come together as a species! I encourage everybody reading this to work hard to help pave the way forward!

[lofhy]

Our Objective: Spy on aliens

Currently: Aliens spying on us

[joshuapreza]

6:18-6:36 my KSP playtrough in a nut shell

[inferno]

It's not like we are abandoning Earth while we go there, just exploring other worlds. I would never give this planet up.

[poodlesrock]

Fascinating! I have been trying to follow the journeys of both Voyagers! Thank you for your uploads that open up even for laymen like me!

[ricardosilva-cyxe]

Amazed to see that just seven years ago they didn't knew a thing about Alpha Centaury's thrid star and Planet roaming around AC-B

[vitorsantacruz]

2021 and James Webb hasn’t been launched yet

[Kjt]

2019, STILL HAVEN'T LAUNCHED JAMES WEBB 😠😡

[jaybeeo]

It always amazes me how huge the universe is

[waldonelli]

In theory, using the warp drive, should be possible to travel from one point of the universe to another instantly, not depending on any kind of propulsion. In other words, you could go to Pandora in the morning and return for lunch.

[sorinbunea]

Damn, and this is only our Milky-way from other billions of galaxyes 🌌... now this is BIG

[Ansonidak]

I doubt that traveling to another star is impossible, but it might be impractical. Considering there is enough room, planets and resources in our own soar system to last us a good long while, I'd rather see interest in developing the more local real estate.

It might not be cost effective to go to the trouble of crossing interstellar distances.  For example moving Venus to the Sun/Earth Lagrange 5 position and bringing in some chunks of water from the outer system to terraform it may be easier, cheaper and quicker than crossing 4.5 ly with a ship.

[Saturnine]

i think we could actually make interstellar travel a reality within 50-100 years because of various problems like the distance, time and propulsion and many more like radiation but there are ideas like fission, fusion, antimatter and maybe even exotic matter-energy, but we already started interstellar flight thanks to voyager 1 that know is in interstellar space

[elcuco]

such a soothing voice..fits perfect with the music...i always look that when i want to sleep

[galaxynva]

its not impossible to get to Alpha Centauri because in the 1920 people thought going to Mars or going to the Moon was impossible, well it was not. We have already been to the Moon and the plan to Mars is right in front of us. All of these new technological advances and new  technologys being reasearched today is the new point of greatness and so beyond. As the help with these great inventions  more suphisticated technologys shall be born and the new possibilities of human exploration can be possible. Yes this will take time but remember humans dont give up they wont quit for something of a big challnenge we will take the challenge, we will acept it even if its the last thing we do. The past is the past and dont keep thinking of it, think of the future where the 21 century is a new dawn for space.