We've all asked this question at some point: How long would it take to
travel to the stars? And could I do it in my lifetime? There are many answers to this possibility, some very simple, others in the realms of science fiction. To make this easier to answer, we'll address how long it would take to
travel to the nearest star to the solar system, Proxima Centauri. Unfortunately, any route you take to the stars will be slow, even if you are powered by the most powerful nuclear propulsion
technology…
In April, I examined how long it takes to
travel to the
Moon. We took the fast-track with New Horizons Pluto mission, powering past
Earth's only natural satellite in a mere eight hours and 35 minutes. We also had the leisurely ion
drive-propelled SMART-1 mission that trundled its way to the
Moon for 13 months. So, from the speedy rocket-propelled spacecraft to the economical ion
drive, we have a few options open to us when flying around local space (plus we could use Jupiter or Saturn for a hefty gravitational slingshot)
The nearest star to
Earth is our Sun. It is a fairly "average" star in the Hertzsprung – Russell diagram's "Main Sequence." Our Sun is surprisingly stable, providing
Earth with just the right sun
light for life to evolve on our planet. We know there are planets orbiting other stars near to the Solar System, but could they support life as efficiently as our Sun? In the future, should mankind wish to leave the Solar System, we'll have a huge choice of stars we could
travel to, and many could have the right conditions for life to thrive. But where would we go and how long would it take for us to get there?
First choice would probably be Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the Solar System. Part of a triple star system called Alpha Centauri; Proxima is 4.22
light years from
Earth. Alpha Centauri is actually the brightest star of the three in the system, and so the system is named after this star. Alpha Centauri is part of a closely orbiting binary about 4.37
light years from
Earth, but Proxima Centauri (the dimmest of the three) is an isolated red dwarf star 0.15
light years from the binary. Red dwarf stars generate far less energy than our Sun, so we'd have to find a planet in a closer orbit to this red dwarf to sustain life as we know it.