Proxima b is a rocky planet and is at a habitable distance from its star, meaning that there is a possibility of liquid water on its surface. Named Proxima B, the planet sits about 4.6 million miles from the star-much closer than Earth, which orbits about 90 million miles from the Sun.
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“This will be the most accessible, closest planet in the habitable zone to our solar system”.
The biggest question is whether the planet has an atmosphere, and at present there is just no way for scientists to know.
Before the discovery of Proxima b, the nearest Earth-like planet to the sun was circling a star known as Wolf 1061, located about 14 light-years away.
Well before the discovery of Proxima b, exoplanet hunters were increasingly interested in red dwarf stars like Proxima Centauri. It is even closer to its star than what Mercury is from the sun. They were searching for a wobble in the star that would indicate the gravitational tug of a potential orbiting planet.
“Finding that the planet has certain characteristics that make it potentially Earth-like and habitable is even more exciting”.
“[We] had discovered the planet’s fingerprints in archived data taken before 2009, but we didn’t have enough evidence to conclusively support such a major discovery”, professor Hugh Jones said.
Astronomer Ansgar Reiners told reporters that the relatively small distance between Earth and the newly-discovered planet will allow for an easier investigation of its features in the future. Pack your jacket though if you’re planning on moving, however, Proxima b is cold at roughly minus 40 degrees Celsius (minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit). “We have found a planet around Proxima Centauri”.
In January, Anglada-Escudé launched the Pale Red Dot campaign, an global project that let the public follow the efforts in confirming the existence of Proxima b.
But this one “basically puts a giant flashing neon sign on the nearest star saying: See this right here”, said study co-author R. Paul Butler of the Carnegie Institution for Science.
Proxima b doesn’t rotate, a factor that makes life likely on the dark and cooler side of the planet. Additionally, the time it takes for the planet to circle the star is a mere 11.2 days.
Let’s face it: Our sun is going to die in five billion years, so assuming we don’t self-destruct as a species we’re going to have to get off this rock at some point.
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Last year, the USA space agency NASA discovered an exoplanet that it described as Earth’s “closest-twin”.
