Jeff Kuhn, the leader of the consortium, talked about the recent discovery of
a planet around Proxima Centauri as one example worthy of study.
No planet was directly detected but we set upper limits on the mass up to 7... ▽ More The recent discovery of an earth - like
planet around Proxima Centauri has drawn much attention to this star and its environment.
Abstract: The recent discovery of an earth - like
planet around Proxima Centauri has drawn much attention to this star and its environment.
Since 2000, a number of groups had found tantalizing hints of
a planet around Proxima Centauri, but nothing conclusive.
Astronomers have discovered an Earth - like
planet around Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the sun.
The team also saw signs of a second potential
planet around Proxima Centauri, a super-Earth with an orbit of between 60 and 500 days.
In 2016, astronomers discovered an Earth - mass
planet around Proxima Centauri, but the planet, blasted by radiation and fierce stellar winds, seems unlikely to be habitable.
But are there hints of more
planets around Proxima Centauri?
We also did an attempt to estimate the radius of possible
planets around Proxima using the reflected light.
This doesn't rule out
planets around Proxima, but if they are there, so far we don't see them.
Not exact matches
Matt Sazama: When we were first working on this in 2016 the news came out that a
planet had been discovered
around Proxima Centauri [the smallest star in the Alpha Centauri star system].
The lead author of the new study, Guillem Anglada [1], from the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (CSIC), Granada, Spain, explains the significance of this find: «The dust
around Proxima is important because, following the discovery of the terrestrial
planet Proxima b, it's the first indication of the presence of an elaborate planetary system, and not just a single
planet,
around the star closest to our Sun.»
After decades of failed searches, astronomers from the Pale Red Dot project found a
planet around our nearest star,
Proxima Centauri.
Project Blue's proposed telescope would have a light - gathering mirror just half a meter wide — so small that it could only look for Earth - like
planets around two stars: the Sun - like Alpha Centauri A and Alpha Centauri B, which along with the red dwarf
Proxima Centauri form the nearest star system to our own at just over four light - years away.
Other recent discoveries of nearby Earth - sized
planets have been
around red dwarf stars, including TRAPPIST - 1 and
Proxima Centauri, but these create less favorable conditions for life.
Researchers have already found hundreds of similarly sized
planets, and many appear to be far better candidates for hosting life than the one
around Proxima Centauri, called
Proxima b.
The discovery in 2016 of a
planet,
Proxima b,
around Proxima Centauri, the third and faintest star of the Alpha Centauri system, adds even further impetus to this search.
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope will have two opportunities in the next few years to hunt for Earth - sized
planets around the red dwarf
Proxima Centauri.
Many are reporting that it could spell trouble for any hope for life on its exoplanet,
Proxima b — but it might also kill off a presumed set of other
planets around the star.
In July 2008, astronomers (Michael Endl and Martin Kürster) analyzed used seven years of differential radial velocity measurements for
Proxima Centauri to submit a paper indicating that large
planets are unlikely to be orbiting Sol's closest stellar neighbor within its habitable zone —
around 0.022 to 0.054 AU with a corresponding orbital period of 3.6 to 13.8 days.
Hence, Earth - type life
around flare stars may be unlikely because their
planets must be located very close to dim red dwarfs to be warmed sufficiently by star light to have liquid water (about 0.007 AU for
Proxima), which makes flares even more dangerous
around such stars.
Without these rings, there might not be evidence for
planets other than
Proxima b
around our sun's closest stellar neighbor.
If a
planet got that close to our hot sun, it would be burnt to a crisp; for a
planet in orbit
around Proxima Centauri, this location is an oasis.
«The
planets in the habitable zone
around nearby dwarf stars, like
Proxima Centauri or TRAPPIST - 1, are exposed to strong stellar winds that could strip their atmospheres,» Loeb said.