Proxima b is the closest known exoplanet.
In our solar system, astronomers have failed to discover life outside our own planet, so they look around. They were pleasantly surprised to find an Earth-like body near the nearest star, Proximy Centauri, only four light-years away.
An exoplanet called Proxima b orbits in close proximity to its star, but it is still in a region with a temperature that will keep its water supplies in a liquid state and will not turn them into eternal ice or steam. Proxima Centauri is much weaker than our Sun. It is a red dwarf, so it is a small and relatively cold star.
Proxima b also resembles the Earth in weight. The original measurements estimated it at 1.3 times the mass of the Earth, and a more accurate spectrograph reduced the resulting number to 1.17.
This is what the sunrise on Proxima b might look like.
Probe in diapers
However, these similarities alone are not enough for the origin of life. The exoplanet would also have to have a stable atmosphere, but we don’t know anything about it yet and it will take us a while to explore it. Although Proxima Centauri is our closest star, current probes would travel to it for millennia. For example, a spacecraft that recently entered Jupiter’s orbit would take 17,000 years to travel to Proxima.
The scientists managed to photograph a unique black hole. The view of it is fantastic
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The Breakthrough Starshot space project, designed by late scientist Stephen Hawking and businessman Mark Zuckerberg, developed the concept of a groundbreaking solar sailboat that would reach 15-20 percent the speed of light and reach Proxima in 20 to 30 years. However, the program is still in its infancy.
You can see a simulation of the Proximy b orbit around your star in the video:
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Source: Youtube
But there is a catch
However, the scientist at Proxima b is overly concerned about something. Due to the very small distance from the parent star, the year here lasts only 11 days, so the exoplanet is exposed to a high risk of being hit here and there by the coronal mass eruption caused by the parent star’s eruptions. In addition, she will be plagued by strong stellar winds. Proxima b would have to have a proper magnetic field to be able to protect its atmosphere and eventual life.
Thus, the outlook is not as optimistic as experts described at the beginning of the research. Nevertheless, the nearest exoplanet remains a remarkable object of scientific interest.
Resources: https://www.space.com/, https://earthsky.org/, https://www.universetoday.com/
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