
Ask HN: Would it be feasible to send a Curiosity-like rover to an exoplanet? - vnglst
I know exoplanets are a long way from earth (nearest is 4.2 light years away). Would we be able to build a rover like mission that would get there in say 50 years time? Assuming we&#x27;re using all the technology we currently have, so not excluding nuclear energy.
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Davidbrcz
No.

From a traveling point of view, sending a probe to Pluton (New Horizons) took
us 10 years and the probe had a nice pull from Jupiter. The closest exoplanet
is 6 700 times farer than Pluton.

From a communication point of view, the probe/rover would not be able to send
us back any kind of signal. Even if we were able to communicate, a round-trip
message would take 8 years.

And remember, we are not always successful when sending a probe/rover to Mars,
which is the closest planet to Earth.

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vnglst
Why wouldn't the probe be able to send us any kind of signal? Would it be too
weak to get here? And what if we were to point a super sensitive telescope to
it?

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Davidbrcz
The signal would be too weak. See free space propagation
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_propagation#Free_space_p...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_propagation#Free_space_propagation).

Remember, we are already using super sensitive telescopes for looking at the
_star_ nearby the exoplanets.

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gadders
No, because if we sent one now by the time we got to year 40 we'd probably
have the technology to send one to overtake it (only slightly facetious).

