Paging Academician Prokhor Zakharov...
posted by biogeo at 12:00 PM on August 24, 2016 [18 favorites]

Quick points: Yes, it's possible that the planet, dubbed Proxima b, has atmosphere and life, but we currently have not a clue if it does.

Since the star is much cooler than ours, the habitable zone for life as we know it is therefore much closer than it would be possible to be in our solar system.

This is what the Sun looks like from Proxima b
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 12:02 PM on August 24, 2016 [23 favorites]

It blows my mind that only a couple of decades ago we weren't sure if there were any planets around other stars and now we are finding them all over the place. Finding a planet isn't even interesting any more. Finding a planet in the goldilocks zone isn't even that interesting. No, now it has to be Earth sized and relatively close to get any attention.

Awesome.
posted by It's Never Lurgi at 12:03 PM on August 24, 2016 [33 favorites]

The closing sentence of the paper:

A warm terrestrial planet orbiting Proxima offers the opportunity to attempt further characterization via transits (ongoing searches), by direct imaging and high-resolution spectroscopy in the next decades, and possibly robotic exploration in the coming centuries.

I love the scientific excitement implicit in this sentence, tempered by a very realistic assessment of the time scale involved. None of us are likely to see a probe report data from this planet in our lifetimes, but if we have the vision to fund a scientific mission, perhaps our grandchildren or their grandchildren will have photographs taken from the surface of an extrasolar Earth-like planet, as much a cultural touchstone as the images of Earth from space and the Moon are that we now take for granted.
posted by biogeo at 12:12 PM on August 24, 2016 [22 favorites]

......DE-HY-DRATE....
posted by tclark at 12:12 PM on August 24, 2016 [11 favorites]

Can we spread a rumor they have oil or valuable data to sell to advertisers?
posted by The Whelk at 12:15 PM on August 24, 2016 [41 favorites]

Well, Bezos and Musk are probably in regardless, I don't know what kind of space program the Zuck has.
posted by Artw at 12:17 PM on August 24, 2016 [3 favorites]

Can we spread a rumor they have oil or valuable data to sell to advertisers?

We don't even have to go that far for oil. Titan is basically made of hydrocarbons.
posted by Xyanthilous P. Harrierstick at 12:18 PM on August 24, 2016 [1 favorite]

None of us are likely to see a probe report data from this planet in our lifetimes, but if we have the vision to fund a scientific mission,

We might not miss it, if they can work out a few minor details. :)
posted by Celsius1414 at 12:24 PM on August 24, 2016 [5 favorites]

In Blindsight there's this great idea of sending an absolute fleet of little robots to take pictures (presumably.)

I would think a Beezos or Musk could look into this, see a way to make it feasible and send off a scad (dozens) of single purpose micro satellites to go snap some pics.

It might take fifty years before we see any photos, but what the hell? If you could do it why not?
posted by From Bklyn at 12:29 PM on August 24, 2016 [2 favorites]

I would think a Beezos or Musk could look into this, see a way to make it feasible and send off a scad (dozens) of single purpose micro satellites to go snap some pics.

Project Starshot
posted by BungaDunga at 12:31 PM on August 24, 2016 [2 favorites]

This is what the Sun looks like from Proxima b

Just looking at that photo, what I don't get is all these weird "co-incidences" that these Astro-nomers want us to believe. First we're told that our sun is actually called, in space language, "The Sun". I mean, what are the odds? And our moon is actually called, "The Moon"-!!! Now we find that the next closest star is called - "Proxima"! I mean, they're not even TRYING to cover up the fact that it's all fake, am I right???
posted by the quidnunc kid at 12:37 PM on August 24, 2016 [20 favorites]

It's a bit hard to put how exciting this is into words.
posted by BigHeartedGuy at 12:37 PM on August 24, 2016 [3 favorites]

Paging Academician Prokhor Zakharov...

...PLEASE REPORT TO THE REEDUCATION CAMP

>WINKY FACE<
Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang
posted by robocop is bleeding at 12:38 PM on August 24, 2016 [3 favorites]

This is what the Sun looks like from Proxima b

That image is really cool. I propose a constellation as seen from Proxima Centauri: David Bowie's guitar. The sun is in Ziggy Stardust's left hand.

Sometimes I wish I had any photoshop skills.
posted by biogeo at 12:42 PM on August 24, 2016 [9 favorites]

Any ideas if this planet is visible from Arecibo or any of our other large scale telescopes? You'd have to imagine the attention of just about every aimable device will be pointed that way. I'm really curious to see what we develop. This is seriously inspiring information and I hope to see it lead to real progress and breakthroughs in our tools if nothing else.
posted by feloniousmonk at 12:45 PM on August 24, 2016 [1 favorite]

But what does Proxima Centauri look like from Proxima B?
posted by grumpybear69 at 12:53 PM on August 24, 2016 [9 favorites]

You know, when The Three-Body Problem predicted this it also predicted that the Trisolarans would prep us for their invasion by creating a massive first-person space game and...

Hm.

Say, what's the Vy'keen word for "Oh shit"?
posted by greenland at 12:56 PM on August 24, 2016 [8 favorites]

It also may be timely to mention the lovely novella "Gypsy" by Carter Scholz; which deals with some people escaping a failing Earth to go to a new world in Alpha Centauri.
posted by Xyanthilous P. Harrierstick at 12:56 PM on August 24, 2016

Well, Bezos and Musk are probably in regardless, I don't know what kind of space program the Zuck has.

Zuckerberg only travels to planets he's killed himself.
posted by biogeo at 12:57 PM on August 24, 2016 [4 favorites]

We need to form the United States Space Force to go to this planet and liberate their resources.
posted by Rob Rockets at 1:00 PM on August 24, 2016 [1 favorite]

But what does Proxima Centauri look like from Proxima B?

Probably really big and really dim. Proxima puts out a lot more of its radiation in the infrared than the sun does, so at a distance where the solar flux is like the sun's, there isn't going to be a ton of visible light. Imagine a big, deep red coal taking up a large chunk of sky, probably faint enough to look at directly, but nonetheless hot in a way that belies how dim it appears.
posted by Mitrovarr at 1:02 PM on August 24, 2016 [8 favorites]

I've never been so jealous of another sun.
posted by little onion at 1:05 PM on August 24, 2016 [1 favorite]

Proxima puts out a lot more of its radiation in the infrared than the sun does, so at a distance where the solar flux is like the sun's, there isn't going to be a ton of visible light.

Poximaians are offended by your humannormative view of life.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 1:08 PM on August 24, 2016 [10 favorites]

Also, the planet is almost certainly tidal locked, so the sun hangs absolutely stationary in the sky forever.
posted by Mitrovarr at 1:10 PM on August 24, 2016 [4 favorites]

We don't even have to go that far for oil. Titan is basically made of hydrocarbons.

I wonder if it would be a good stop point for refueling. Do we use methane as a propellant in common space engines?
posted by a lungful of dragon at 1:14 PM on August 24, 2016

I truly sincerely believe that humanity should focus it's efforts on implementing human beings in software. Not simulations, not 'uploading', actual human beings (like in Egan's Diaspora).
It's the only way we'll escape the solar system and go explore the stars.
posted by signal at 1:15 PM on August 24, 2016 [2 favorites]

Maybe we should start with implementing a kitten in software?
posted by thelonius at 1:46 PM on August 24, 2016 [8 favorites]

Proxima is sufficiently nearby that the constellations look pretty much the same. The Sun is in the constellation Cassiopeia, and adds another zig to its zig-zag-zig-zag. Cassiopeia is supposed to be a woman sitting on a chair. So I guess Proximans will see a woman sitting on a chair wearing a hat.
posted by rlk at 1:48 PM on August 24, 2016 [7 favorites]

Almost no light, high levels of X-Ray and Infrared, and a giant menacing red eye hovering in the sky.

Where do I sign up?
posted by blue_beetle at 2:01 PM on August 24, 2016 [9 favorites]

While this is very cool, I'm aware I'll be dead before we can even get a satellite there to send a photo. The earliest planned mission would be Project Starshot which won't launch for probably two decades, then at least 25 years beyond that before we'd get the first data back.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 2:05 PM on August 24, 2016 [1 favorite]

Do we use methane as a propellant in common space engines?

Soon. SpaceX is developing a methane engine, one reason being that you can manufacture methane on Mars if you bring/find some hydrogen. The Russians are too.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 2:05 PM on August 24, 2016

Neato! I'm surprised it would take so long to get there, though. That's only a fraction of the Kessel Run.
posted by pangolin party at 2:08 PM on August 24, 2016 [2 favorites]

But what about the mind worms?
posted by Wretch729 at 2:14 PM on August 24, 2016 [5 favorites]

So this planet might be as hospitable to life-as-we-know-it as Venus?
posted by straight at 2:14 PM on August 24, 2016 [1 favorite]

Unfortunately, Proxima Centauri is usually below the horizon for most of us in the Northern Hemisphere; in fact, I think you have to be in the Southern Hemisphere to see it. But if you're lucky enough to live in Australia or South Africa, you might want to step outside tonight after sunset and look up at the brightest star in the south, and say, "Someday..."

(OK, yes, the brightest star in the south is actually the twin star system Alpha Centauri, and Proxima Centauri itself is just a neighbor star and is too faint to be seen without a pretty big telescope, but at least you'll be looking in the right direction!)
posted by math at 2:40 PM on August 24, 2016 [5 favorites]

My probe would get there 5 minutes after it closed.
posted by davebush at 3:00 PM on August 24, 2016 [2 favorites]

I've read some speculation that it might be possible to image the planet directly from Earth orbit, using something like long base interferometry. Maybe not with today's equipment, but something that would be physically possible. Anyone with expertise care to comment? I have no intuition for these kinds of sensing problems.
posted by Nelson at 3:07 PM on August 24, 2016

So this planet might be as hospitable to life-as-we-know-it as Venus?

Let's not get carried away now.
posted by Artw at 3:34 PM on August 24, 2016

Almost no light, high levels of X-Ray and Infrared, and a giant menacing red eye hovering in the sky.

Where do I sign up?

Whoa, whoa, slow down. One does not simply fly to Proxima b.
posted by The Tensor at 3:35 PM on August 24, 2016 [8 favorites]

I found some notes on imaging the planet in other discussions: Reddit, Hacker News. Long story short the answer is not right now, but conceivably we could have an image that shows a separate dot for the planet in < 20 years. Longer to image the planet itself. The problem isn't just the tiny relative size of the object, but also the low contrast to the blinding star it orbits.
posted by Nelson at 3:45 PM on August 24, 2016

straight: "So this planet might be as hospitable to life-as-we-know-it as Venus?"

Less than that even. We really have no idea what the atmospheres of earth ish size extra solar planets look like. And just look at the variation presented by Venus/Earth/Mars in our own system; one of which has a strong selection bias.
posted by Mitheral at 3:50 PM on August 24, 2016 [1 favorite]

The big news, to me, is that if there is a planet in the habitable zone in the nearest system to our own (and in our own though that is kind of tautological) it strongly implies that such planets are common. And if such planets are common there are millions if not billions of them in the Milky Way alone.
posted by Justinian at 4:04 PM on August 24, 2016 [6 favorites]

But what about the mind worms?

Okay, then. Paging Lady Dierdre Skye.
posted by biogeo at 4:13 PM on August 24, 2016 [3 favorites]

How long will it take to find out how they've reacted to Nickleback?
posted by rhizome at 4:19 PM on August 24, 2016 [2 favorites]

And just look at the variation presented by Venus/Earth/Mars in our own system; one of which has a strong selection bias.

It's Mars, isn't it. Fucking Martians, think they're so selective.
posted by Etrigan at 4:24 PM on August 24, 2016 [4 favorites]

An earth-like planet orbiting a near-by red star? Good Lord, they've found Krypton!

First we're told that our sun is actually called, in space language, "The Sun".

Yes, this is regrettable -- in the usual SF nomenclature it would be labeled "Sol."
posted by Rash at 4:50 PM on August 24, 2016 [3 favorites]

Also, the planet is almost certainly tidal locked, so the sun hangs absolutely stationary in the sky forever.

and

Almost no light, high levels of X-Ray and Infrared, and a giant menacing red eye hovering in the sky.

Where do I sign up?

'sup.
posted by curious nu at 5:15 PM on August 24, 2016

Proxima is sufficiently nearby that the constellations look pretty much the same.

That is the most inspiring things I've heard today. I used to get my heartstrings pulled by imagining someone 20,000 years ago, lying on their back near their camp, looking at essentially the same stars I see. Henceforth, I'm going to be imagining my kinship with the Proximaians. Children of the same constellations...
posted by brambleboy at 5:41 PM on August 24, 2016 [12 favorites]

The problem isn't just the tiny relative size of the object, but also the low contrast to the blinding star it orbits

Also, to make things even more fun, how close the tiny faint thing is to the big bright star. There's a reason why the planets we have imaged so far tend to be Jupiter-sized or larger and young (both make them brighter), and also much further from their star than Jupiter in our solar system (so we can actually pick them out). Proxima Centauri B is way too close (38 milliseconds) to its star and also at the extreme edge of contrast detectability... that's hard.

(IAAA)
posted by puffyn at 5:51 PM on August 24, 2016 [6 favorites]

OK, so for perspective, of which I have precious little, Proxima Centauri is about 5x10^13 km away. Voyager 1 has traveled 2x10^10 km in 40 years. So it would need another 80,000 years to get there, if it were traveling in the right direction.

To get data back within our lifetimes, we need to get a craft going 2000x faster than Voyager, and get it to then slow down again upon arrival.

Hence, the "Starshot" plan being to send "nanocrafts" that can more easily be accelerated to a decent fraction of light speed.

Kudos to us if we do that.

Does anyone know how they propose to get data back from that distance, from a nanocraft. (The page I read just says "lasers!")
posted by brambleboy at 5:55 PM on August 24, 2016 [3 favorites]

Phil Plait: Holy wow. Seriously. Wow.
posted by homunculus at 5:59 PM on August 24, 2016 [6 favorites]

Maybe we should start with implementing a kitten in software?

But then you have dead spam emails all over your desktop.
posted by solarion at 6:07 PM on August 24, 2016 [1 favorite]

It sure moves smartly, circling that briquette of a sun, once in eleven some odd days. Orbiting and landing is that a more difficult task, or is it the same? I guess the nature of the atmosphere would determine some things.
posted by Oy¨¦ah at 7:33 PM on August 24, 2016

Does anyone know how they propose to get data back from that distance, from a nanocraft. (The page I read just says "lasers!")

This is going to sound facetious but I promise you it isn't:

You keep launching fleets of nanocraft every few days. Once you have the lasers powered up and going (how???), each extra nanocraft is cheap. And then as the surviving 50% (30%? 10%?) of these nanocraft zip by their target, they pass word down the line, so they only need to transmit information across a few light days, not several light years.

"The planet is green in color. Pass it on."
"The planet shows absorption lines for water, oxygen and carbon. Pass it on."
"ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS. Pass it on."
posted by RedOrGreen at 7:47 PM on August 24, 2016 [3 favorites]

Also, from an email sent around to the members of the Carl Sagan Institute (I know, right?):

The planet Proxima-b has a minimum mass of the planet is 1.3 Earth masses (30% heavier than Earth ¨C or more) and it is in the empirical Habitable Zone of its star (meaning it gets less flux than Venus and more than Mars) ¨C a very exciting and inspiring find. A potentially habitable planet around our closest star, at our cosmic doorsteps!

Its star, Proxima Centauri, is a small red star, that is very active, bombarding the planet every 10-30 hours with high energy radiation. With a lot of high energy radiation hitting the planet, biota (if it is there) could hide undergound or evolve to cope with it, e.g. shielding itself through biofluorescence¡­ so a potential biofluorescent world around our closest star.
posted by RedOrGreen at 7:49 PM on August 24, 2016 [1 favorite]

Oooh, a teaser from the paper: "A second signal in the range of 60¨C500 d was also detected, but its nature is still unclear due to stellar activity and inadequate sampling."
And then later, "the presence of another super-M¨’ planet cannot yet be ruled out at longer orbital periods and Doppler semi-amplitudes of <3?m/s.
posted by RedOrGreen at 7:56 PM on August 24, 2016 [2 favorites]

You keep launching fleets of nanocraft every few days

We all know space is inconceivably vast, but I suspect the travel corridor between here and Proxima Centauri is somewhat less so. Perhaps we shouldn't be littering it with thousands of tattered solar sails and dead microprobes lest we end up shelling out quadrillions of quatloos five hundred years from now cleaning all that shit up.
posted by CynicalKnight at 8:39 PM on August 24, 2016 [1 favorite]

The big target here is to use a coronagraph to do spectroscopy for atmospheric characterization. You need either a 30-meter ground based telescope (so GMT, TMT, or E-ELT) or a >=16m space telescope, but it's probably doable to some degree. I'm sure someone will try with the existing 8 meter class telescopes regardless (going to have to be VLT or Gemini; can't see it from Hawaii. Is anyone seeing director's discretionary time being snapped up right now?).
posted by kiltedtaco at 8:47 PM on August 24, 2016 [2 favorites]

RedOrGreen: "You keep launching fleets of nanocraft every few days."

I was wondering the same thing; not a lot of space for an interstellar radio array on a nano probe. If the plan is as outlined that is an incredibly fragile plan. Lose funding at any point in the 25+ years of the project and all the prior expenditure is wasted. Same for any natural or man made disaster that prevents the launch facilities from launching. And that applies even if the probes have enough power to reach back several light weeks or months; any interruption longer than the max receiving distance and Poof! effort wasted. Talk about your critical paths; the mind boggles.
posted by Mitheral at 8:49 PM on August 24, 2016 [2 favorites]

In 2047 one of our survey ships was approaching Proxima Centauri, an inhabited system with which Alpha had a long history of conflict and antagonism, when it was attacked and destroyed. Soon afterwards Alpha was subjected to the worst thermonuclear attack it had ever experienced, this being followed by the destruction of one of our spaceliners with a full complement of passengers. The Proxima War had begun.

-- Terran Trade Authority Handbook: Spacecraft 2000-2100 AD
posted by Harvey Kilobit at 9:28 PM on August 24, 2016 [5 favorites]

worst thermonuclear attack it had ever experienced,
There were several before? I learn something new every day!
posted by boilermonster at 10:08 PM on August 24, 2016

Still another 30 years to go.
posted by rhizome at 10:53 PM on August 24, 2016

I like the idea of exploring/colonising the universe as software. OK, it takes decades/centuries/millennia for the first automated probe to get there, but the first colonists/explorers arrive only a few years later, subjectively instantaneously since their last memory before arrival is being queued up to be transmitted. Best of all, by the time the explorers get bored with one star, probes might have reached other stars, further out in substantially the same direction. So you don't even have to wait for the virtual explorers to transmit out from Earth. Instead they come from the nearest explored/colonised star. In less than 100,000 years we could explore the entire Galaxy and have probes headed to the Magellanic Clouds and beyond.
posted by Autumn Leaf at 12:34 AM on August 25, 2016

It occurs to me that later generations of the nano probe laser launchers could also come in handy when the Kzinti come.
posted by Autumn Leaf at 1:02 AM on August 25, 2016

So it's not Alpha Aleph, then?
posted by a person of few words at 5:29 AM on August 25, 2016 [2 favorites]

I like the idea of exploring/colonising the universe as software.

Well sure, until a .dll conflict.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 5:42 AM on August 25, 2016 [4 favorites]

kim stanley robinson's 'Aurora'
posted by judson at 7:09 AM on August 25, 2016

So this planet might be as hospitable to life-as-we-know-it as Venus?

Possibly more like Mars. From the Phil Plait writeup:

...its temperature without an atmosphere would probably be around -40¡ã C, but Earth¡¯s average temperature without the greenhouse effect is only -15¡ã. So yeah, cold, but if it has enough CO2 or other greenhouse gases in the air (assuming it even has air!), it could be clement there.

By contrast, Mars' mean temperature is like -55 C, with IIRC only trivial greenhouse effect from its thin atmosphere. So even if this new planet has little-to-no atmosphere like Mars, it'd still be more hospitable than any non-Earth planet in the solar system. If it has the same ~30K of greenhouse warming as Earth then it'd be mostly below freezing but would probably be warm enough for liquid water near the equator.

On the other hand, if it did have the same ~480K of greenhouse warming as Venus then yeah, it'd be pretty much like Venus. 90 Earth-atmospheres of CO2 is a hell of a drug.
posted by roystgnr at 7:39 AM on August 25, 2016 [1 favorite]

I truly sincerely believe that humanity should focus it's efforts on implementing human beings in software. Not simulations, not 'uploading', actual human beings (like in Egan's Diaspora). It's the only way we'll escape the solar system and go explore the stars.

I like the idea of exploring/colonising the universe as software.

The only way that will work is exactly like in Egan's Diaspora -- fictionally.

You can no more explore/colonize the universe "as software" than you can "as" a Trek Domane SLR 9 eTap or "as" a Sulzer XRCP submersible sludge pump.

This is exciting news, but we're going to be taking it ve-r-r-ry slo-o-o-wly. Nano-robots, then macro-robots, then hundreds of years later we may figure out how to go and have a look around in person. It's going to be imaging and telemetry and and waldos and meat-suits all the way downup, I believe.

Cassiopeia . . .

Oh man, I was really wasted at the time; that keyboard was never the same again, even if anyone had been willing to even touch it.
 
posted by Herodios at 9:03 AM on August 25, 2016

brambleboy writes: I used to get my heartstrings pulled by imagining someone 20,000 years ago, lying on their back near their camp, looking at essentially the same stars I see.

I have some bad news for you...
posted by math at 9:37 AM on August 25, 2016 [2 favorites]

I wonder if it would be a good stop point for refueling. Do we use methane as a propellant in common space engines?

What are you going to oxidize it with?

To be viable as a space fuel (well, one that burns), you either have to have two chemicals that react together or one chemical that is so unstable it can be made to decompose exothermically with heat. Nothing on Titan I know of fits into the second category, and the hydrocarbons are only one part of the equation for the first. You would need an oxidant, probably oxygen or fluorine, to actually burn them. Which is why they don't burn on Titan (that and the temperature, but one expects the occasional meteor provides enough heat to start a fire if one were possible).

If you are just looking for reaction mass to throw out the back of your spaceship which operates via another power source, it would probably be easier to get something from a small asteroid on comet.
posted by Mitrovarr at 10:34 AM on August 25, 2016 [1 favorite]

If you are just looking for reaction mass to throw out the back of your spaceship which operates via another power source, it would probably be easier to get something from a small asteroid on comet.

Do you know where we can get one cheap? *looks around for credit card*
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 11:35 AM on August 25, 2016

We all know space is inconceivably vast, but I suspect the travel corridor between here and Proxima Centauri is somewhat less so. Perhaps we shouldn't be littering it with thousands of tattered solar sails and dead microprobes lest we end up shelling out quadrillions of quatloos five hundred years from now cleaning all that shit up.

Seems like a worthy consideration. However, (and of course, IANA Physicist), how many of these nanoprobes traveling 20% the speed of light that crash into a carbon atom are really going to be stuck in the travel corridor? Seems like they must have a lot of momentum (relative to whatever they hit) and most of them are going to keep on keepin' on. At least I'd think it's more likely they bounce off in a different direction as opposed to coming to something like a stop.
posted by polecat at 11:37 AM on August 25, 2016

By the time we reach Proxima Centauri, our technology would have changed us so much from humans today that we might as well be a new species.

Given our biological capabilities, I would be surprised if we land on Pluto in our current form. Although, technically speaking, I would be dead and hence not literally surprised.
posted by TheLittlePrince at 11:53 AM on August 25, 2016 [2 favorites]

Given our biological capabilities, I would be surprised if we land on Pluto in our current form. Although, technically speaking, I would be dead and hence not literally surprised.

Nah, human arrogance/ingenuity will ensure that we design exosuits that fit like a comfy jumpsuit and can keep us alive for days while exploring Venus.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 12:46 PM on August 25, 2016

"NASA Discovers Distant Planet Located Outside Funding Capabilities"

ouch Onion. ouch.
posted by The Whelk at 1:30 PM on August 25, 2016 [2 favorites]

Given our biological capabilities, I would be surprised if we land on Pluto in our current form. Although, technically speaking, I would be dead and hence not literally surprised.

posted by TheLittlePrince at 14:53 on August 25

It would be fine. L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux.
posted by biogeo at 2:12 PM on August 25, 2016 [1 favorite]

Maybe we should start with implementing a kitten in software?

I would love to see the comments back on that IACUC proposal.
posted by biogeo at 2:13 PM on August 25, 2016 [1 favorite]

On imaging the planet directly, the October 2015 Sky & Telescope has an excellent article about exoplanet imaging. It's titled "The Next Blue Dot", by Ruslan Belikov & Eduardo Bendek. Not online directly but Google has several copies of uncertain copyright status. The summary is we already can image some exoplanets directly, we have several dots, but so far only for planets that are too far away from their stars to be habitable. Also they are truly dots, unresolved, beyond the diffraction limit needed to make a clear image.

Technology is improving though and 5¨C20 years from now we may be able to image Earth-like planets. This Proxima Centauri planet is a particular challenge given how close it is to its star; but other nearby stars will likely also have Earth-like planets that will be easier to image.
posted by Nelson at 11:54 AM on August 31, 2016