They might be right next door, say astronomers.
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Just 4.2 light-years from our Solar System sits a red dwarf star named Proxima Centauri. And it might be habitable. “It’s like taking Earth a bit further away, but it’s comparable”, Guillem Anglada-Escudé, who published his findings in the journal Nature, to the BBC.
All of this makes the search for life elsewhere in the universe more exciting and more plausible than previously thought.
The Vice President of Astronomy at the Houston Natural Museum of Science believes the planet dubbed Proxima B is pretty special. Although the planet theoretically orbits its star in a region where water could exist as a liquid on its surface, no direct information can be gleaned about whether Proxima b has an atmosphere, water, or other characteristics that would increase its habitability.
The Pale Red Dot campaign is the name given to an effort to detect Earth-like planets orbiting Proxima Centauri, and the researchers involved provided regular online updates of their progress through their website and social media.
This artist’s conception shows a hypothetical planet with two moons orbiting in the habitable zone of a red dwarf star. It is 1.3 times the mass of the Earth or bigger. The reason being, Proxima Centauri is the closest star to our Sun. For these reasons, Proxima b may just be the closest planetary host for alien life. But it takes a lot more than temperatures conducive to liquid water to make a place livable.
All the same, the planet may still be hospitably wet, Meadows says, depending on how and where it formed billions of years ago and how its star behaved during the planet’s infancy. The light side would be constantly bombarded by radiation from the star, while the dark side would freeze.
Yet, a number of questions about Proxima B are left unanswered.
The relative proximity of the planet gives scientists a better chance to eventually capture an image of it, to help them establish whether it has an atmosphere and water, Reuters reported. More research is needed to determine if there are multiple planets circling Proxima Centauri.
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He said: “The discovery of the habitable planet around the nearest star, Proxima Centauri, is strategically important for motivating the Breakthrough Starshot initiative, since it provides an obvious target for a flyby mission”. It is only slightly larger than our planet and likely has a rocky surface. If Proxima b ever eclipses Proxima Centauri, its detection would be made much easier to humans.
