Comment on Jackpot: Scientists find Earth-like planet at star next door

Jackpot: Scientists find Earth-like planet at star next door

WASHINGTON (AP) — After scanning the vast reaches of the cosmos for Earth-like planets where life might exist, astronomers have found one right next door. A planet that is rocky like Earth and only slightly bigger has been discovered orbiting Proxima Centauri , the nearest star to our solar system, scientists reported Wednesday. It is probably in the not-too-hot, not-too-cold Goldilocks Zone where liquid water — a key to life — is possible, if the planet has an atmosphere. The international team of astronomers that announced the discovery did not actually see the planet but deduced its existence indirectly, by using telescopes to spot and precisely calculate the gravitational pull on the star by a possible orbiting body — a tried-and-true method of planet-hunting. It is 4.6 million miles from its red dwarf star, or just one-twentieth of the distance between Earth and the sun, creating an incredible orange sky with no blue, so it looks like a perpetual sunset. [...] if that's not different enough, the planet circles its star so quickly that its year is about 11 days. Earlier this year, an all-star team of scientists and business leaders including Stephen Hawking and Mark Zuckerberg announced Breakthrough Starshot , a project to send out hundreds of light-powered space probes that would weigh about a gram, travel at one-fifth the speed of light and send pictures back to Earth. Four years ago another group of scientists excited the world with a claim of a planet — not in the habitable zone — around Alpha Centauri, a star a bit farther away. Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb, who isn't part of the discovery team but is advisory board chairman for Breakthrough Starshot, said Proxima might someday prove vital to humanity's future.

 

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