This Is How Many People We’d Have to Send to Proxima Centauri to Make Sure Someone Actually Arrives
Since it would take at least 6,300 years to reach the closest star to our sun, enough men and women to produce many genetically healthy generations would need to make the trip
If humans are ever to colonize the galaxy, we will need to make the trip to a nearby star with a habitable planet. Last year, astronomers raised the possibility that our nearest neighbor, Proxima Centauri, has several potentially habitable exoplanets that could fit the bill.
Proxima Centauri is 4.2 light-years from Earth, a distance that would take about 6,300 years to travel using current technology. Such a trip would take many generations. Indeed, most of the humans involved would never see Earth or its exoplanet counterpart. These humans would need to reproduce with each other throughout the journey in a way that guarantees arrival of a healthy crew at Proxima Centauri.
And that raises an interesting question. What is the smallest crew that could maintain a genetically healthy population over that time frame?
Today, we get an answer thanks to the work of Frédéric Marin at the University of Strasbourg and Camille…
