There may be some habitable planets around Alpha Centauri.

Is there life outside the earth? In galaxies and billions of star systems, the possibilities for life on other planets are endless. But from the perspective of the universe, if life is next door, it will definitely be very convenient.

A newly announced mission aims to explore the nearest star system Alpha Centauri, hoping to find out whether nearby stars have planets orbiting them, and whether these planets are habitable.

The new mission is a privately funded telescope called TOLIMAN, which is the original Arabic name for Alpha Centauri. TOLIMAN also represents our astronomical area orbit trajectory interference monitoring telescope. It will be launched in the mid-2020s.

The mission was a collaboration of scientists from the University of Sydney, the California Breakthrough Program, Australia's Sabre Aerospace Corporation, and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

The telescope is equipped with a diffractive pupil lens that can spread the light from the star into a flower-like pattern, which will make it easier for astronomers to detect any slight irregularities in the motion of the star.

Usually, these irregularities indicate the gravitational influence of orbiting planets on stars.

Eduardo Bendek, an optical engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said in a statement: “Our TOLIMAN mission will launch a custom-designed space telescope that can make extremely fine measurements of the position of stars in the sky.” “If there is one. A planet orbits the star, and it pulls the star, causing it to make a tiny but measurable wobble."

Alpha Centauri is the closest star system to us. It consists of three stars-Alpha Centauri A and B, and Proxima Centauri.

Proxima Centauri is closer to the sun, only 4.24 light-years away, and has a looser gravitational relationship with its two companion stars. At the same time, Alpha Centauri A and B are 4.37 light-years away from us. They are sun-like stars orbiting each other in close binary orbits.

Scientists have detected two planets orbiting Proxima Centauri.

Although there is evidence that there may be a planet orbiting the Alpha Centauri double star system, astronomers have yet to make a definitive detection.

Professor Peter Tuthill from the Sydney Institute of Astronomy at the University of Sydney said: “Astronomers can use amazing technology to allow us to find thousands of planets orbiting stars in a vast area of ​​the Milky Way, but we know almost nothing about our celestial backyard. ." and the project leader of the TOLIMAN mission said in a statement. "This is a modern problem; we are like Internet-savvy urbanites, their social media connections are all over the world, but we don't know anyone who lives in our own neighborhood."

So far, astronomers have detected about 4,000 exoplanets in search of habitability beyond Earth.

However, finding a potentially habitable planet orbiting Alpha Centauri is most likely to allow humans to establish themselves as a multi-planetary species, because it will be the easiest world to travel to due to the proximity to it.

Pete Klupar, chief engineer of Breakthrough Watch, said in a statement: "These nearby planets are where humans will use high-speed, futuristic robotic probes to take the first step into interstellar space."

Even before humans develop the technology to reach nearby planets, exploring a potentially habitable planet in our cosmic backyard can better understand life and habitability outside of Earth.

"Knowing our planetary neighbors is very important," Tahir said. "These next-door planets are the best prospects for us to find and analyze the atmosphere, surface chemistry, and perhaps even biosphere fingerprints-preliminary signals of life."