Hi neighbor! Astronomers find planet near nearest star

Finally: Astronomers have found an exoplanet near Earth. Well, close by: the planet that would orbit Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the sun and at a distance of 40 trillion kilometers. The planet is in the habitable zone.

The planet tentatively named ‘Proxima b’ orbits the red dwarf in 11.2 days and is estimated to be 7.5 million kilometers from its star. That’s a lot less than the hundred and fifty million kilometers that the Earth is from the sun, but Proxima Centauri is not a bright light either: it has a brightness that is only 0.15 percent that of our sun, the researchers explain in Nature. .

The existence of the planet has not yet been conclusively proven. There are strong indications for this, but scientists are also still waiting for verification of the measurement results that indicate that Proxima b really exists. If it exists, there’s a chance it has a solid surface that could potentially host oceans. Proxima b would be about 1.3 times the mass of the Earth.

Now that we have neighbors, can we go for coffee there too? Yes, says science journalist Govert Schilling in de Volkskrant. By accelerating unmanned space probes by lasers on Earth, they should be able to arrive at Proxima Centauri within 25 years. A manned spaceship cannot be accelerated that far and would therefore take centuries with current technology. New world footage would take four years to reach Earth: Proxima Centauri is about four light-years from Earth. Last year, an exoplanet 21 light-years away was the closest yet.