An earth-sized rocky planet that can support liquid water on its surface orbits our closest stellar neighbor!
This is amazing!
This is amazing!
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Proxima Centauri B!
- Thread starter aaronvan
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I've read several articles on this one and the planet orbits a red dwarf star every 11 days and is only 5 million miles from the star; much closer than Mercury is to the Sun. However because the star is a low mass red dwarf it is far less powerful and bright allowing the potential for liquid water to be on the surface.
The habitability factor appears to be low right now because scientists believe it may be tidally locked the the star, much like the Moon is to Earth, so it doesn't rotate on its axis. Plus it is believed to receive about 400x more x-rays due to its closeness to the red dwarf than the Earth does from our star.
Regardless, it’s a very cool find, and being only a mere 4 light years away it is a good candidate to send probes to for further investigation.
The habitability factor appears to be low right now because scientists believe it may be tidally locked the the star, much like the Moon is to Earth, so it doesn't rotate on its axis. Plus it is believed to receive about 400x more x-rays due to its closeness to the red dwarf than the Earth does from our star.
Regardless, it’s a very cool find, and being only a mere 4 light years away it is a good candidate to send probes to for further investigation.