Scientists have found a planet orbiting around Proxima Centauri that they believe may be “Earth-like”, according to a report in Der Speigel.
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The discovery was said to be made by the European Southern Discovery (ESO) using the reflecting telescope of its La Silla Observatory.
Before now, the nearest Earth-like planet was thought to be Wolf 1061c some 14 light years away.
Proxima Centauri, discovered in 1915, is one of three stars in the Alpha Centauri system, a constellation mainly visible from the southern hemisphere.
Named Kepler 452b, the planet is about 60 percent larger than Earth and could have active volcanoes, oceans, sunshine like ours, twice as much gravity and a year that lasts 385 days.
NASA has announced the discovery of new planets in the past, but most of those worlds were either too hot or too cold to host water in liquid form or else were gas giants, like Jupiter and Neptune, rather than rocky worlds like Earth or Mars.
The prospect of an Earth-like planet that is within our reach is tantalizing, but the Der Speigel report is based on “anonymous sources” at the ESO and the space organization has yet to officially confirm the story.
If the exoplanet discovery is confirmed, the finding would also bolster the work of astronomers who, according to Astrobiology magazine in 2012, constructed models showing that red dwarf stars might be the best places to look for habitable and Earth-like exoplanets because they are the most plentiful type of stars in the universe, not to mention being long-lived as well. And with over 4,000 exoplanets now identified, the search is on to find out which ones are in the so-called “habitable zone” – that orbital range around a star within which a planet’s surface could maintain liquid water and thus be a life-bearing candidate.
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Mr Lubin told Universe Today: “The discovery of possible planet around Proxima Centauri is very exciting”. This is the same instrument that was used to discover another exoplanet orbiting Alpha Centauri a few years ago, but that analysis has since been called into question. Maybe long enough for intelligent life to evolve? It’s still 4.25 light years away from us, but that’s very close in the grand scheme. “We are not making any comment”, Hook had said.
