Residents of New Exoplanet Would Retire at Age 2120

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TDWI

Aug 25, 2016, 20:00 ET

Seattle, WA (PRWEB) August 25, 2016 -- Upside, a division of TDWI, today announced its analysis of the data surrounding the discovery of a new planet, Proxima b, that may be able to sustain life. Upside staff found some fascinating comparisons when they put the data into perspective.

To travel to this distant, rocky terrain that’s “just” 4.2 light-years from Earth takes longer than one might think. That distance is the equivalent of 2.5 billion round trips between Anchorage, Alaska, and Miami, Florida (with $2.64 trillion in fuel costs alone). Prefer to travel by air? Prepare to fly around the world at the equator over 992 million times to travel the same distance.

Upside also calculates that even a ride in Voyager 1, the fastest spacecraft to date, would require 73,000 years in flight. That’s enough time to enjoy over 852 million hour-long episodes of Star Trek or watch 2001: A Space Odyssey roughly 255,790,458 times.

Because the new planet is so close to its sun, Proxima b’s orbit is short: just 11.2 Earth days. That means residents of Proxima b can expect to:

  • Graduate from high school when they’re 587 (in “Pb years”)
  • Have their first marriage at about their thousandth year
  • Enjoy early retirement (55 Earth years) at 1800, give or take a few days
  • Wait until they are 2120 to reach full retirement (age 65 on Earth)

These and other comparisons are part of Upside’s article “Alpha Centauri, Here We Come,” available at https://upside.tdwi.org/articles/2016/08/25/alpha-centauri-here-we-come.aspx.

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James E. Powell, Editorial Director, TDWI, http://tdwi.org, +1 (206) 284-1762, [email protected]