After a week of consideration, now it’s been affirmed: who believe in there is a living planet in the space and earth is not the only one, there is a rocky, probably Earth-like planet only 4 light-years from Earth, the closest ever found.
The German newspaper Der Spiegel quoted On Aug. 16, an unnamed source from the European Southern Observatory who said that they had found an Earth-like planet projecting the closest star to Earth, Proxima Centauri. Better yet, the planet projected in the star’s ‘habitable zone,’ an area around a star where liquid water can subsist.
The source also stated the newspaper that the observatory would affirm the discovery by the end of August this year. Well, another news is, no one at the ESO had approved or denied the discovery.
Picture Courtesy: pics-about-space.com
Proxima Centauri is a distant star that lies in the constellation Centaurus. It’s actually part of a 3-star system that also holds the Alpha Centauri A and Alpha Centauri B.
This artist’s impression explains a view of the surface of the planet Proxima b orbiting the red dwarf star Proxima Centauri, the closest star to our solar system.
Picture Courtesy: www.nasa.gov
The orbit of RR245, a new dwarfed planet orbiting beyond Neptune. New dwarfed planet found beyond orbit of Neptune
- This artist’s impression gives a view of the three-star system HD 131399 from close to the large planet orbiting in the system. New exoplanet has unique triple star system
- Jupiter with one of its biggest moons, Ganymede, ‘The largest and baddest planet in the solar system.
Picture Courtesy: www.nasa.gov
The research for the exoplanet was done using the ESO’s spectrograph telescope; it handles the breakdown of light, as well as other expert and amateur telescopes from around the globe as part of the Pale Red Dot campaign. Scientists were looking for a wobble in the star. A wobble would mean that a planet’s gravitational pull was acting upon the star.
Guillem Anglada-Escudé who led the campaign said ‘The first signs of a possible planet were found back in 2013, but the discovery was not convincing Since then we have worked carefully to get further observations of the ground with help from ESO and others.’
Picture Courtesy: omnichronicle.com
The investigation found that a planet with a size of about 1.3 Earths was orbiting Proxima Centauri about 7 million kilometers away, closer than Mercury orbits the sun.
Despite the planet, Proxima Centauri b, orbits much alike to its host star, it’s still in the habitable place because the star is much cooler and fainter than our own.
Astronomers predict that the planet has warmth that would allow water to exist on its covering, which provides for the possibility of life. However, scientists will have to continue to study in order to confirm.
Picture Courtesy: www.cnn.com
Have you ever questioned what it would be like to live on the moon? What about Mars or Mercury, or Venus ? We certain have and that’s why we chose to find out what it might be like to exist on other worlds in our solar system, from Mercury to Pluto and beyond.