Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – Astronomers have found evidence of a third planet orbiting the star closest to the Sun. This discovery reinforces the idea that other planets exist around galaxy stars, even the smallest ones.
The newly discovered planet is less than half the size of Earth and may be too hot to be habitable.
Scientists assess, there is still the possibility of life around Proxima Centauri, Earth’s closest galactic neighbor.
“This planet is not in the habitable zone of a star – it orbits too close,” said astronomer João Faria, lead author of the study published this month in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics detailing the discovery. “So it’s impossible for water to be in a liquid state and the conditions are just right for life.” he continued.
In fact, the new planet is very close, about a tenth of the distance between the Sun and Mercury. So it only takes five days to complete an orbit around its star. Astronomers say they are very pleased with the discovery, despite the unfavorable conditions that exist on this new planet.
Faria, a researcher at the Institute of Astrophysics and Space Sciences at the University of Porto in Portugal, said the new planet had to be verified by other observations.
But Faria and her co-authors say they detected it “in small variations in the light of the star Proxima, a ‘wobble’ caused by the planet’s gravity.
Similar techniques were used to detect the first planet discovered around Proxima in 2016, and the second planet in 2019.
But the latest search uses light collected by a new spectrograph on the Very Large Telescope on a mountain peak in the Atacama Desert in northern Chile – a more sensitive instrument than previously used.
(roy/roy)
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