Sunday, October 16, 2016

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I've arrived! I'm safely in orbit around Proxima Centuari B; here's a photo with Proxima Centauri in the distance:


With my rather elaborate array of sensors I am pleased to tell you that B has the slightest of atmospheres made up mostly of Argon with traces of Hydrogen. The surface is completely barren and devoid of any life, well at least, none that my sensor array can pick up. There are numerous shallow craters and vast areas of uninterrupted flatness. It seems that Proxima Centauri is grabbing all of the asteroids in its gravity well, leaving B in peace. The very thin atmosphere over these last billions of years has smoothed it all out. Gravity on the surface is about 0.64g and the pressure is about a twelfth of an Earth atmosphere. It is all pretty good as a candidate for terra-forming except for the light - only about 15% of the insolation of Sol is landing here on B from Proxima Centauri. So the 'Sunny' side of B feels like it is in a bit of a perpetual twilight. I've sent down a probe to check on what the ground of B contains; it will move around in a 10km circle to take samples. This isn't great as it is only a really small portion of the entire planet, but it is about all I can do with what I've brought with me.

I've got enough supplies to stick around here for another day or two, but will then have to head back.

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