Michel Mayor, an astrophysicist who was a co-recipient of the Nobel Prize in physics this year says migrating to another planet with the current technology and living there is out of the picture as of now for humans.
“If we are talking about exoplanets, things should be clear – We will not migrate there”, said Michel Mayor to Agence France-Presse (AFP). Michel said he felt the need to kill all the statements that say, “OK, we will go to a livable planet if one day life is not possible on Earth”.
Michel co-received the Nobel Prize in physics for discovering the first planet orbiting a sun-like star outside of our solar system. In light of the fact, he revealed that all the known exoplanets are too far away to travel feasibly.
Michel Mayor further added that “Even in the very optimistic case of a livable planet being not too far away, say a few dozen light-years, which is not a lot. The time to go there is considerable”.
Stephen Kane, a professor of planetary astrophysics at the University of California agrees with Mayor. “The sad reality is, at this point all-stars are effectively at a distance of infinity,” Kane told Live Science.
Humans as a specie struggle enough to send people to Earth’s Moon. We might be able to travel to Mars in the next 50 years. Stephen said that he would be very surprised if humanity reaches the orbit of Jupiter in the next few centuries.
Since the distance to the nearest star beyond our solar system is 70,000 times greater than the distance to Jupiter; Every star is effectively out of reach.
Michel Mayor told the AFP: “We must take care of our planet, it is very beautiful and still absolutely livable.”
