The reason the planet hasn’t been found until now, the newspaper says, is that astronomers have historically fixated on stars similar to our own brightly burning sun (such as Alpha Centauri), but it’s become apparent that stars like Proxima Centauri could be “just as capable of hosting life as more familiar looking suns”. While Proxima b orbits its star at a distance closer than that of Mercury, he noted that its host star is much fainter than our sun, and thus the potential habitability of the new world can not be dismissed.
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This artist rendering shows a view of the surface of the planet Proxima b orbiting the red dwarf star Proxima Centauri. But because its star is much cooler and fainter than our sun, Proxima b has a temperature that is suitable for liquid water to exist on the surface without evaporating.
Colleague Dr Guillem Anglada-Escude, also from Queen Mary University of London – who led the team of around 30 astronomers, said: “Succeeding in the search for the nearest terrestrial planet beyond the solar system has been an experience of a lifetime, and has drawn on the dedication and passion of a number of global researchers”.
“It’s so inspiring, it’s our closest star”, Lisa Kaltenegger, a Cornell astronomer who wasn’t involved in the new study, told The Washington Post.
“This is a dream for astronomers if we think about follow up observations”, said Reiners. “The search for life on Proxima b comes next…”
“We have found a planet around Proxima Centauri”.
Proxima b’s orbit around its star is a mere 11.2 days, which is about an eighth of the length of Mercury’s orbit. This means scientists don’t now know if the planet has an atmosphere, possesses a magnetosphere or has liquid water.
The tricky thing about Proxima b is scientists believe it’s tidally locked, which means it shows the same face to its parent star at all times.
“There had previously been claims of other planets, so we had to be really careful here”, Anglada-Escudé said during an embargoed news briefing held by Nature on Tuesday. The result is also a tribute to all of them. “Even if this is not so surprising after all, as it now seems established that the vast majority of stars host at least one planet, it is still nice to have apparently found the closest to us”.
This would indicate whether the plant was rich with water in its early days or started out dry, as well as whether there was any high-energy radiation that could have blasted away an atmosphere during formation of the planet.
“Chances are good that it’s a viable, Earth-like planet today”, said astronomer Pedro Amado, with the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía in Granada, Spain.
Researchers have long looked to Alpha Centauri for study. “You’re not going to see aliens waving at us”. Exoplanets found this way: 17.6 percent. “We hope to build a whole system that will send nanocraft to Proxima Centauri and Alpha Centauri within a generation”, said Worden, the executive director of Breakthrough Starshot, an initiative that aims to deploy thousands of tiny spacecraft to travel to our nearest neighboring star system and send back pictures. That was 2.66 billion miles away and it took the probe ten years to get there.
The Pale Red Dot team will continue to monitor Proxima b and make observations using giant telescopes such as the European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT).
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Many researchers hope that we can actually image these planets in the future, getting an idea of their atmospheric makeup and surface composition, and strive to answer the question of “Are we alone in the universe?” “It is significant because if we needed inspiration to try to reach the next star, now we have it”. “The excitement is because it’s the nearest one, and we expect to characterize it and maybe visit in a couple of centuries”, Anglada-Escudé said.
