# Proxima Centauri has an earth-sized planet



## Brian G Turner (Aug 24, 2016)

The nearest star to our solar solar system has at least one earth-sized planet - and the possibility of water:

Earth-sized world 'around nearest star' - BBC News


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## Dulahan (Aug 24, 2016)

There is a lone being sitting at a console drinking some kinda blue Whiskey calling over his buddy going "Hey, the monkeys are looking at us."


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## BDFiala (Aug 24, 2016)

And now we know where most of SF stories in the coming years will be taking place...


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## Brian G Turner (Aug 24, 2016)

I think we should campaign to name this planet "Mollari".


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## BDFiala (Aug 24, 2016)

Brian Turner said:


> I think we should campaign to name this planet "Mollari".


Most logical choice


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## Cat's Cradle (Aug 24, 2016)

Brian Turner said:


> I think we should campaign to name this planet "Mollari".


Hah! Perfect!!


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## Parson (Aug 24, 2016)

Hump! spoil sports! I thought I was going to scoop everyone on this. Oh well! Here's another site.

An Epochal Discovery: A Habitable Planet Orbits Our Neighboring Star


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## VinceK (Aug 24, 2016)

"_The Queen Mary University of London researcher and his group concede they still have much work to do to extend their observations._"

Then I suggest you think about cleaning the telescope, I'd start with that speck of dust.


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## BAYLOR (Aug 24, 2016)

Brian Turner said:


> The nearest star to our solar solar system has at least one earth-sized planet - and the possibility of water:
> 
> Earth-sized world 'around nearest star' - BBC News



If we go interstellar , we've got a reason to go to Alpha Centauri.


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## ralphkern (Aug 25, 2016)

Fantastic news!!! 

These are the highlights of the press conferance.


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## Brian G Turner (Aug 25, 2016)

Ah - my bad - the star is not Alpha Centauri, as the BBC originally reported, but Proxima Centauri:
Planet Found in Habitable Zone Around Nearest Star - Pale Red Dot campaign reveals Earth-mass world in orbit around Proxima Centauri

So it's not Centauri Prime we've discovered, but Proxima 3...


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## Ursa major (Aug 25, 2016)

Brian Turner said:


> Ah - my bad - the star is not Alpha Centauri, as the BBC originally reported, but Proxima Centauri


I suppose it was okay as a first... er... approximation....


Given that the plant is still a very long way away, it'll be interesting to see what scientists can come up with to determine whether life exists on that world.


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## Vertigo (Aug 25, 2016)

Well I imagine first steps will be attempting to do spectroscopic analysis of the atmosphere. With any luck that will show us if there is at least water. Remember we have three planets here in the habitable zone so let's not get too excited just yet.


Edit: some additional thoughts come to mind:

Do we know if the star's wobble indicates the planet's orbit places it periodically between us and the star? Or another way of asking it: is the system's ecliptic aligned with us? If not it will be difficult or even impossible to gather any other data without a probe and we don't want to think about how long that would take.

Would I be wrong in saying that Red Dwarves are much more unstable than our sun? And due to their lower temperature and therefore much therefore tighter habitable zone any such planet would suffer far more from stellar flares than we do from the sun?

I wonder whether this planet would have been in the habitable zone prior to the star going into its red dwarf phase?


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## Old_Man_Steve2016 (Aug 30, 2016)

Maybe we'll point the Webb or the TESS space telescopes at them, when we eventually get them spaceborne. TESS goes up next year and Webb goes up in 2018. I'm drooling just thinking about the data right now! Oh, the lovely light curves!

If you can't wait and want to find your own super-Earth (or hot Jupiter), go to this website and help out. Planet Hunters


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## BAYLOR (Sep 25, 2016)

Brian Turner said:


> Ah - my bad - the star is not Alpha Centauri, as the BBC originally reported, but Proxima Centauri:
> Planet Found in Habitable Zone Around Nearest Star - Pale Red Dot campaign reveals Earth-mass world in orbit around Proxima Centauri
> 
> So it's not Centauri Prime we've discovered, but Proxima 3...



It's still a good reason to plan a mission to that place down the road.


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## LordOfWizards (Sep 25, 2016)

The planet has an orbit around Proxima Centauri of 11.2 days. That's a very short year. If there were salient aliens, the adults would likely be thousands of years old!


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## BAYLOR (Sep 25, 2016)

LordOfWizards said:


> The planet has an orbit around Proxima Centauri of 11.2 days. That's a very short year. If there were salient aliens, the adults would likely be thousands of years old!




Climatically wouldn't  that speedy an orbit render the surface conditions problematic?


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## LordOfWizards (Sep 26, 2016)

Not necessarily. Space is a vacuum so there's no friction. They say they won't know about the atmosphere for quite some time yet. They think it may be tidally locked with the star, which would have some climactic corollaries. They say that without an atmosphere the surface temperature would be around -40 degrees Celsius. But with enough greenhouse gasses, it could potentially be warm enough for liquid water. Quote from BBC: "This planet is at 5% of the Earth's distance from the Sun. However, Proxima is 1,000 times fainter than the Sun. So the flux - the energy - reaching Proxima b is about 70% of what the Earth receives. It's like taking Earth a bit further away, but it's comparable."


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## BAYLOR (Sep 26, 2016)

LordOfWizards said:


> Not necessarily. Space is a vacuum so there's no friction. They say they won't know about the atmosphere for quite some time yet. They think it may be tidally locked with the star, which would have some climactic corollaries. They say that without an atmosphere the surface temperature would be around -40 degrees Celsius. But with enough greenhouse gasses, it could potentially be warm enough for liquid water. Quote from BBC: "This planet is at 5% of the Earth's distance from the Sun. However, Proxima is 1,000 times fainter than the Sun. So the flux - the energy - reaching Proxima b is about 70% of what the Earth receives. It's like taking Earth a bit further away, but it's comparable."



Its dwarf star, isn't it?

Alpha Centauri  B is slightly smaller and less radiant then our sun. It is he best type of star to have because it has far greater longevity and stability  then a yellow sun such as the one we have.


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## Vertigo (Sep 26, 2016)

If it's tidal locked then that changes everything but if not then the short 'year' would mean that effectively it will not have seasons no matter how much tilt it has got. Instead, assuming it does have a tilt, half of those 11 days would be warm and half cold. So I would imagine that the flora and fauna would have to adopt a similar mechanism tropical jungles where there are almost no seasonal variations. I'm not saying it would be the same temperature but the flora would have to have different triggers for flowering, fruiting etc. and the fauna different triggers for mating.


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## LordOfWizards (Sep 30, 2016)

BAYLOR said:


> Its dwarf star, isn't it?
> 
> Alpha Centauri  B is slightly smaller and less...


 Proxima Centauri, about which this planet revolves is a dwarf star, yes. And it does have greater longevity, although the 4 billion years we have left is mind blowingly long. I'm not sure why you brought up Alpha Centauri B, although it is more similar to our sun. 

You make some good points Vertigo, it could have tilt, it could even have wobble like Mars, which could affect weather, but this is all assuming there is some atmosphere within which to contain the weather.


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## Brian G Turner (Oct 15, 2016)

It might be a little early to get excited about any potential planet, judging by the potentially lethal UV and X-Ray emissions from Proxima itself: Proxima b’s hyperactive star is more sun-like than thought

(It's a subscription article, but the opening paragraph says it all).


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## BAYLOR (Oct 15, 2016)

Brian G Turner said:


> It might be a little early to get excited about any potential planet, judging by the potentially lethal UV and X-Ray emissions from Proxima itself:
> Proxima b’s hyperactive star is more sun-like than thought




By time time we send a manned mission to that place ,  we will have  long since perfected super sunblock Anti UV and X Ray Lotion.


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## Brian G Turner (Oct 15, 2016)

BAYLOR said:


> By time time we send a manned mission to that place ,  we will have  long since perfected super sunblock Anti UV and X Ray Lotion.



Maybe, but perhaps we'll have to avoid getting excited about finding life there first.


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## BAYLOR (Oct 15, 2016)

Brian G Turner said:


> Maybe, but perhaps we'll have to avoid getting excited about finding life there first.



It's sounds like a very unlikely place to find life.


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## Brian G Turner (Apr 11, 2018)

Might not be such good news after all. _New Scientist_ reports on a superflare that could have been devastating to any life (as we know it!) on any orbiting planet - though to be fair I think we already knew the star had a dangerous level of activity:

Life on nearest exoplanet may have been wiped out by superflare


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## J Riff (Apr 11, 2018)

Apparently, Proxima formed, like, millions n billions of yeaRs before the Earth did...SO, if there is life there, and they have had all that time to evolve... and they are neighbors... then they haven't dropped by to be friendly, for a million yeARs, at least, so if that's how ETs are, unfriendly, then we just shouldn't go there. Just wait here, they will be along and with any luck they won't be giant radioactive ants who overrun and kill us all.


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## Lumens (Apr 20, 2018)

J Riff said:


> Apparently, Proxima formed, like, millions n billions of yeaRs before the Earth did...SO, if there is life there, and they have had all that time to evolve... and they are neighbors... then they haven't dropped by to be friendly, for a million yeARs, at least, so if that's how ETs are, unfriendly, then we just shouldn't go there. Just wait here, they will be along and with any luck they won't be giant radioactive ants who overrun and kill us all.


Where I live, the last time neighbours spoke was just after the last ice age, so I'd say that's normal on an interplanetary level.


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## Parson (Apr 20, 2018)

Fortunately that's not so where I live. --- We even have neighborhood get-togethers. --- One of the advantages of small towns and condo associations.


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## BigBadBob141 (Apr 29, 2018)

Forget Mars, with NASA trying to build a warp drive this could be our new home!!!!!!!!!


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## Brian G Turner (Sep 18, 2018)

Just thought I'd revise this thread, as - despite initial doom and gloom - various simulations suggest that there's a good chance it might have liquid water on its surface: Closest planet ever discovered outside solar system could be habitable with a dayside ocean

Although the headline talks things up, it's still a very hostile system to be in. However, it's expected that observations in the near future will be able to determine what sort of atmosphere - if any - this planet has.


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## J Riff (Sep 19, 2018)

The planet Algon... where a simple charger for a cellphone costs 900 million dollars


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## Brian G Turner (Apr 10, 2019)

And new research suggests that the radiation might not be as damaging as we expect - so Promixa's planet could still conceivably support life:
Life could be evolving right now on nearest exoplanets


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## picklematrix (Apr 10, 2019)

Stephen Baxter's book Proxima is still fairly 'hard' scifi for now then.


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## J Riff (Apr 10, 2019)

So, they are our neighbors... and they formed millions of years before the Earth did... and yet they never drop by with, say, a gift basket? Should be declared an enemy planet, just to be safe.


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## picklematrix (Apr 11, 2019)

J Riff said:


> So, they are our neighbors... and they formed millions of years before the Earth did... and yet they never drop by with, say, a gift basket? Should be declared an enemy planet, just to be safe.


I'm all fairness, they could have called the police with a noise complaint when we starting setting off nuclear bombs in our garden.
I say we invite them to new years.


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## BigBadBob141 (Apr 15, 2019)

REF: J Riff.
Perhaps we are the gift basket???


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## Brian G Turner (Apr 18, 2019)

And might have a second:
Evidence of another possible planet orbiting Proxima Centauri


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