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Earth-like planet spotted orbiting Sun's closest star
Astronomers have discovered a third planet orbiting Proxima Centauri, the star closest to the Sun. Dubbed Proxima Centauri d, the newly spotted world is probably a bit smaller than Earth, and well within the habitable zone of its host star — meaning that it could have oceans of liquid water that can potentially harbour life.
"It's showing that the nearest star probably has a very rich planetary system," says Guillem Anglada-Escudé, an astronomer at the Institute for Space Sciences in Barcelona, Spain, who led the team that in 2016 discovered the first planet to be seen orbiting Proxima Centauri.
Astronomer João Faria and his collaborators detected Proxima Centauri d by measuring tiny shifts in the spectrum of the star's light as the planet's gravity pulled it during orbit. The team used a state-of-the art spectrograph called ESPRESSO at the Very Large Telescope, a system of four 8.2-metre telescopes at the European Southern Observatory in Cerro Paranal, Chile. The results were published on 10 February in Astronomy & Astrophysics.
A candidate short-period sub-Earth orbiting Proxima Centauri
We detect a signal at 5.12 ± 0.04 days with a semi-amplitude of 39 ± 7 cm s−1. The analysis of subsets of the ESPRESSO data, the activity indicators, and chromatic RVs suggest that this signal is not caused by stellar variability but instead by a planetary companion with a minimum mass of 0.26 ± 0.05 M⊕ (about twice the mass of Mars) orbiting at 0.029 au from the star. The orbital eccentricity is well constrained and compatible with a circular orbit.
Previously: "Earth-Like" Exoplanet Found in Habitable Zone of Proxima Centauri
ESO Confirms Reports of Proxima Centauri Exoplanet
Dust Belts and Possible Additional Exoplanet Spotted Around Proxima Centauri
Icy second planet potentially spotted orbiting Proxima Centauri
Proxima Centauri b Confirmed Using VLT's ESPRESSO, Possible Third Exoplanet Found in System
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 11 2022, @11:14PM (2 children)
Assuming lasers can accelerate a probe without turning it into molten scrap.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Saturday February 12 2022, @12:52AM (1 child)
And even assuming you could get it anywhere near 5-10% of the speed of light by that method, isn't that too fast to do meaningful science when it gets near the star system? You couldn't slow the probes down with your lasers. I'm not sure they'd even be able to enter a stable orbit at that speed would they?
Master of the science of the art of the science of art.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 12 2022, @05:36PM
They'd have to aerobrake using the destination star's atmosphere. This is why solar sails are better than lasers for propelling interstellar probes.