http://www.bigear.org/CSMO/HTML/CS11/cs11p16.htm

http://www.rfreitas.com/Astro/InterstellarProbesJBIS1980.htm

http://www.setv.org/online_mss/seta83.html

http://www.setileague.org/editor/stride2.htm

This got me thinking: has anyone done a simulation of the formation of Alpha Centauir A & B? I asume that considerable work has been done on the formation of binary stars, and if someone has done a run on Alpha Centauri, the results would give us a much better idea on such things as the gas densities and masses of the nebulas around the individual stars and hence a much better
idea of what to expect in the way of planets.

Since we are likely to characterize the limits of planetary occurance around both stars to a very high degree in the next few years, it would at least be a good test for the binary star formation models.

Papagiannis, M. D., Are We Alone or Could They be in the
Asteroid Belt?, Q. J. R. Astro. Soc., vol. 19, p. 277, 1978

Papagiannis, M. D., An Infrared Search in Our Solar System as
Part of a More Flexible Search Strategy, in The Search for
Extraterrestrial Life: Recent Developments, M. D. Papagiannis
(Editor), Reidel Pub. Co., Boston, Massachusetts, 1985

http://www.astrobio.net/news/article919.html

http://cic.setileague.org/cic/v1i2/s3eti-ata.pdf

http://www.sunstar-solutions.com/SETV/SL_editorial4a.pdf

Here are some earlier papers on SETI projects looking for
ETI visitors in our neighborhood:

Freitas, R. A., and Valdes, F., A Search for Natural or
Artificial Objects Located at the Earth-Moon Libration Points,
Icarus, vol. 42, pp. 442-447, 1980

Freitas, R. A., and Valdes, F., A Search for Objects Near the
Earth-Moon Lagrangian Points, Icarus, vol. 53, pp. 453-457, 1983

Freitas, R. A., and Valdes, F., The Search for Extraterrestrial
Artifacts (SETA), Acta Astronautica, vol. 12, no.12, pp. 1027-1034, 1985

There is also Allen Tough’s Invitation to ETI Web site, which
assumes ETI might be tapping into our Internet to study humanity
(which may explain why we have not heard from them yet) and
may even contact us through it some day:

http://www.ieti.org/

I am a bit puzzled and surprised by that: HD190360 is in the process of leaving the main sequence and becoming subgiant, 70 Virginis is probably also in that stage, but also extremely bright (over 2.9 times solar luminosity) and variable. I could think of better stars to invest in.

“A star of a certain age, in other words, may have been around long enough to allow an extraterrestrial civilization (…) to emerge ” True, but by this age it may be time for a civilization to consider moving.

Question: “Alpha Centauri b “…overwhelmingly best star in the sky for detecting habitable planets from the ground and on the cheap” Fascinating, but if so, why isn’t this being done yet?

@Kurt9: “Also, is there a list of the nearby stars (within 20-30 light years) that lists metallicity and hypothesized age?”

I have been looking for reliable metallicity and age data as well. For metallicity, try http://vizier.u-strasbg.fr/
For age, for nearest sunlike stars I found a great recent publication (PDF): ‘Improved Age Estimation for Solar-Type Dwarfs Using Activity-Rotation Diagnostics’, by Eric E. Mamajek and Lynne A. Hillenbrand.

Anybody else?

Alpha Cen B is a better target for a radial velocity search because it has less photospheric noise and a better gravitational response to orbitting planets due to its lower mass (0.9 Sol vs 1.1 Sol for Alpha Cen A).

And yes there is a list like you describe. Do a Google search and then trawl around – I’ve got a text file of that sort of data from just such a webpage, but I don’t have the URL handy.

Now if we can get SETI to get past their justifiable issues with UFOs, we might even see some serious searches for alien probes in our
Sol system.

That’s an interesting idea, and certain has some scientific merit (even as the longest of longshots) but I really don’t think it’s realistic to expect anyone in the astronomy community, let alone SETI, to spend any time or money looking specifically for alien probes.

Our best chance of finding one is through serendipity and astronomers’ innate desire to find something new and newsworthy. For example, one of them detects an asteroid in an unusual orbit and it’s unusually dark/bright or it seems to be spinning far faster than normal. Should something about an observed object pique their interest like that, then I would bet there’s an excellent chance that if it is an alien probe, it will eventually be confirmed as such. It’s all about getting that first, lucky break.