INDOZONE.ID – Astronomers have just discovered the existence of planet New orbiting Proxima Centauri is the closest star to Sun or solar system.
Reported The GuardianFriday (11/2/2022), the astronomers spotted the new planet after studying the tiny wobbles in Proxima Centauri’s motion caused by the gravitational pull.
Astronomers studied this while making observations with the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile. From these observations, the new planet orbits the star in full every five days.
They believe that the planet orbits about 2.4m miles (4m km) from Proxima Centauri, which is closer to the star than the habitable zone where the temperature range is just right for free-flowing water.
An astronomer at the Institute of Astrophysics and Space Sciences in Portugal, Joao Faria said the findings suggest that the nearest star neighbor is ‘packed with new, more exciting worlds’.
Planet name
The planet in question is called Proxima d, the third and lightest planet visible around Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the sun.
The planet is joined by Proxima b, a planet with a mass comparable to Earth, which completes an orbit every 11 days, and Proxima c, which is believed to take about five years to orbit the star.
The existence of Proxima d is known to have started in 2020 when astronomers observed Proxima Centauri to confirm the existence of Proxima b.
The measurements revealed a weak signal in the star’s characteristic motion caused by a planet orbiting every five days.
Further observations made with an instrument on the ESO telescope called Espresso confirmed astronomers’ suspicions that a planet was the cause and not a change in the star itself.
“This is a very low-mass planet, and is the third candidate around the star closest to us,” Faria said.
“This suggests that these planets, similar to Earth, may be common in our galaxy, and only close together. And it makes us wonder about the possible habitability conditions in this planetary system and whether it is possible for life to arise elsewhere in the universe. ” he continued.
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