Although the new planet is by far the closest potentially habitable exoplanet to our solar system, it would still take more than 1,000 years to arrive using today best rocketry developed, according to Universe Today.
Advertisement
Orbiting the Proxima Centauri red dwarf star, the planet – called “Proxima b” – has characteristics that could be potentially earth-like.
Space.com reports the planet lies within the “habitable zone” around Proxima Centauri, which refers to the range of distances at which liquid water could be found on the surface.
“The search for life starts now, ” says Guillem Anglada-Escudé, an astronomer at Queen Mary University of London and leader of the team that made the discovery.
Although the planet’s parent star, Proxima Centauri, is cooler and redder than our Sun, one of the other two stars in the Alpha Centauri star system is very similar to our Sun. It is said liquid water could exist on it and dream of astronomers could come true with follow-up observation.
Informally designated Proxima b, the planet revolves around its star once every 11.2 days and is located at a distance of almost 7 million kilometres from its star. As part of the research effort, astronomers pointed several powerful telescopes at the red dwarf with the hope of catching the star’s wobble, the push and pull caused by the orbit of Proxima b. It orbits Proxima Centauri which is the nearest star to us. While we seem to be alone in our solar system, now researchers have found a place where life really could exist – and it’s not that far away.
Looking up from the planet’s surface, the star would seem stationary in the sky, says Anglada-Escude, and is so orange that if the planet had an atmosphere like ours, the heavens would perpetually have the color of “a late autumn sunset”.
The planet was found orbiting in the star’s “Goldilocks Zone” – a habitable area where temperatures aren’t so cold that water freezes, like Mars, but isn’t so hot that water evaporates, like Venus. Researchers also believe Proxima b is without seasons. This means Proxima b is even closer than Mercury is to our sun.
The discovery is consistent with results from the exoplanet community which suggests that the galaxy has planets in abundance, so perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised that the star nearest to our sun also hosts at least one planet.
Working with European Southern Observatory telescopes in the north Chilean desert, his team used the so-called Doppler method to detect Proxima b and describe its properties.
Advertisement
The planet, named Proxima b, is at an optimum distance from the star to host alien life.
