[TMEHpodcast]

The detection of a potential giant planet in the habitable zone of Alpha Centauri A is compelling, not because we could live on the planet (likely a gas giant), but because it could host moons with the right conditions for life. If even one of those moons is Earth-sized and water-rich, it might be our nearest shot at finding another habitable world.

Still, getting there with something like David Kipping’s proposed TARS propulsion system (a solar-powered launcher that can fling tiny probes at ~40 km/s) we’d be looking at 30,000+ years to reach the star system. It’s a step forward, but for now, our best hope is to keep watching. Until someone develops fusion propulsion…

[vikingerik]

Note that the "Earth-sized" condition in there is doing some heavy lifting. Earth is a factor of 40x more massive than the largest moon in our solar system. A body needs to be fairly close to Earth's mass to have enough gravity to retain liquid water on its surface. Not that it couldn't happen, but we currently don't have any known precedent for a moon that large.

[spartanatreyu]

Why limit ourselves to liquid water on its surface?

It'd be easy to have a world covered in ice with underwater oceans kept liquid by volcanic vents.

[kjkjadksj]

Sometime this week there was an article talking about using lasers to send 1cm probes at 0.25c to alpha centauri. Estimates are 30 years for arrival of a swarm of these.

[defyonce]

Unless we learn how to live for billions of years.

[reactordev]

We would need to master gravity as a manipulating force instead of a constant. There’s faster methods of traveling long distances than just pointing your nose at it.

[pbmonster]

> There’s faster methods of traveling long distances than just pointing your nose at it.

Maybe there is. More likely, there isn't.