But the most significant part of the study is that the scientists believe that Proxima b could be the next potential “abode” to cater to life outside the Solar System. The double star Alpha Centauri AB also appears in the image between the planet and Proxima itself. It tracked the activity of Proxima Centauri using a network of telescopes around the world to make sure the subtle signal from Proxima b wasn’t a glitch. According to The New York Times, the findings underscore a connection between us and Earth, particularly in regards to the planet as a home. “Any planet with a decent ocean and atmosphere has a means to redistribute energy”.
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There are still many questions, especially the crucial one of whether the planet has an atmosphere.
The global team of astronomers that announced the discovery haven’t seen Proxima b but confirmed its existence indirectly using telescopes to identify and precisely calculate the gravitational pull it had on its star, a proven method in exoplanet-hunting.
Named as Proxima b, the exoplanet orbits Proxima Centauri, which the closest star to our sun. It is located at 4.37 light-years from our planet. Not only is the star hot in its first billion years, it would bombard the planet with hundreds of times the intensity of X-rays and ultraviolet light that our planet gets from the sun.
The Proxima Centauri is a red dwarf, meaning that it is quite cooler than the sun. So we’re probably still around 50 years from getting a probe to Proxima b. “We know now there is at least one planet with some characteristics similar to the Earth”, Pete Worden, a former top NASA manager, was quoted as saying. “I kept checking the consistency of the signal every single day during the 60 nights of the Pale Red Dot campaign”, Guillem Anglada-Escudé said in a press release by ESO.
The discovered planet orbits close in – so close, in fact, that one year there takes only 11 days on Earth.
The nearest star to our solar system.
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The Proxima Centauri is quite dim by the standards of the stars. That’s not a guarantee that it does have water, but Proxima b could be quite wet. However, on Wednesday, astronomers said that they have found somewhat a planet called Proxima b that offers possibility for supporting life on it.
