Not Quite Wunderland

Wunderland is a planet circling Alpha Centauri, and was the earliest extra-solar colony in Known Space's human history. It has a surface gravity of 60% that of Earth's and is hospitable to human life. Wunderland was invaded and its population enslaved by the Kzinti during the first Man-Kzin War. It was freed near the end of the First War by the human Hyperdrive Armada from We Made It. (“Known Space: Locations” from Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia)

The Alpha Centauri (α Cen) System, consisting of the two stars α Cen A and α Cen B orbiting each other, is our Sun's closest¹ neighbour in space. And because in space ‘close’ is still quite far away, and also because both of α Cen's component stars are conveniently very Sun-like, we should not be surprised that not only have many significant works throughout the history of science fiction² featured planets orbiting one or both of its component stars, but that proponents of interstellar space exploration, too, have set their focus on α Cen as the most promising first target. Not only due to the Sun-like nature of its stars, but also because relying on propulsion technologies that are considered realistic for the foreseeable future, α Cen is the only target that a probe could reach and report back its results from in the time of a human lifespan; even though the resources required for such an enterprise means that economical limitations makes it unlikely that we will launch such a mission in the near future.

Therefore, yesterday's announcement by the European Southern Observatory (ESO) that it has found a planet orbiting α Cen B means a significant boost for such speculation. The planet, designated α Cen Bb orbits α Cen B at 0.04 au with a ‘year’ of only 3.236 days. α Cen B in turn orbits α Cen A in a highly elliptical orbit at a distance which is roughly the same as from the sun to Saturn and Neptune respectively. And even though α Cen B is slightly smaller and colder than our Sun, the small distance between it and the newly discovered planet means that the planet's surface will be hotter than Mercury and therefore certainly no target for even the most aspiring space colonialists.

However, its discovery confirms speculations that there at least is something for a theoretical interstellar probe to look at around any of α Cen's stars. Additionally, α Cen Bb is not only the nearest extrasolar planet discovered so far but with a mass of only 1.13 Earth masses also the smallest one in orbit around a solar analogue star. And while our technological capabilities are still to weak to detect any planets in orbits further out around either α Cen A or α Cen B, the discovery of α Cen Bb raises the possibility that they might exist. If they do, it will only be a matter of time before astronomers will learn of their existence.

For now, α Cen Bb might be only a rock, but it has the possibility to become a very important rock.

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1. ↑ Proxima Centauri is slightly closer (~0.24 ly) than either α Cen A or α Cen B. However, most astronomers assume that Proxima is part of the α Cen system, thereby making it a triple star system.
2. ↑ Philip K. Dick's Clans of the Alphane Moon, The Man-Kzin Wars by Larry Niven (which features the planet Wunderland mentioned above) and Footfall by both Niven and Jerry Pournelle, The Songs of Distant Earth by Arthur C. Clarke, William Gibson's Neuromancer, The Killing Star by Charles R. Pellegrino and George Zebrowski, and, last but not least, Avatar, James Cameron's latest blockbuster—just to mention a few examples.

Star-Gazing

Since as long as I was old enough to understand what stars are I have been captivated by the vastness that space is. However as I have also been a city-dweller even longer my occupation with them has been largely theoretical. A few small lights in a city night sky are not much of an inspiration.

My first personal contact with “real astronomy” (in the sense of actually looking at stars instead of only reading about them) was in early 1997. Some of you might remember that this was the year of Comet Hale-Bopp which presented a spectacular sight even from my parents' suburban backyard. But a few weeks later a friend of my parents, an avid amateur astronomer, showed me a photograph of Hale-Bopp that he had taken. I was stunned, even more so when I found out that he had taken it with his own telescope positioned just a few kilometres away from the city.

This led to a short fascination with star-gazing, but I was young and there were many other exciting things to learn and to do which soon drew my attention away. Years came and went until last year I found myself lying in the grass in the park with a friend during some warm, and exceptionally clear and starry summer night. We looked at the stars and tried to make out some of the more famous constellations. Unfortunately not much knowledge had remained from my teenage years and neither of us managed to even find the Big Dipper (or any similar conspicuous asterism). At least she thought to have found Cassiopeia, but when we looked it up later, we realised that Cassiopeia had actually been in the completely opposite direction. And that bright star which we could not name had not been a star at all but the planet Jupiter.

That night left me thoroughly disillusioned about the capabilities of my long-term memory. And she must have remembered it equally well, for half a year later she got me a planisphere for Christmas. So when last night the sky was clear and cloudless for the first time since Christmas I had to use the chance to test it. (I know it sounds almost too long to believe, but we really had a lot of bad weather lately.) As soon as it was dark enough I grabbed my present, got into the car and drove 30 minutes into the nearby hills.

The first thing I noticed when I got out of the car and walked a few minutes away from the parking site to the lookout point was the bright shine of the city lights at the northern horizon. For a short time during the walk I had felt that I was in a real wilderness, but it reminded me quickly that I actually was still completely surrounded by civilisation. But despite it I still saw a sky that was incomparable to what I was used from the actual city.

And with the help of my star chart, it all came back to me. I easily found the Big and Little Dipper, Orion, Cassiopeia, Eridanus, Canis Major, and Gemini, and Sirius and Betelgeuse, and Castor and Pollux, the band of the Milky Way, and many other things. And Jupiter, of course, which could not be mistaken in its brightness. But most importantly it brought back to me the feeling of realising how vast the space that surrounds our little planet is. A fact, that is only too easy to forget when you spend your time by creating scenarios, where interstellar travel is ubiquitous and not regarded as anything specially worth to mention.