At 4.24 light-years away, Alpha Centauri is the closest star system humanity has ever named as a destination — and yet, by every measure of current technology, it remains beyond reach. Proxima Centauri b, an Earth-mass world orbiting within its star's habitable zone, has become the nearest candidate for a question humanity cannot stop asking: are we alone? The distance between asking that question and answering it is, at present, approximately 75,000 years — a span that humbles our ambitions while quietly sharpening them.