The nearest exoplanet Proxima b, which revolves around the dim red dwarf Proxima Centauri, about 4.2 light years away from us, may have a neighbor Proxima c. Proposed at the Breakthrough Discuss conference at the University of California at Berkeley (USA) Mario Damaso, an astronomer from University of Turin (Italy).
It is very important to emphasize that for now this is just a candidate.
-Mario Damasso during the presentation
In August 2016, it was announced the discovery of Proxima b – a potentially habitable extrasolar world orbiting its star in the Goldilocks zone, a place where water on its surface may be in liquid form. One year on it lasts about 11.2 Earth days. Because of its proximity to the star, about 7 million kilometers (5% of the distance from the Earth to the Sun), Proxima b is constantly exposed to the most powerful ultraviolet radiation, which to this day causes a great debate about its ability to support life.
Unfortunately, if Proxima c is confirmed from disputes about its potential habitability, there will definitely not be any, as it is located much further from Proxima Centauri, at a distance of 1.5 astronomical units, and its equilibrium temperature is -234 degrees Celsius. The minimum mass of a candidate is 6 times the mass of our planet. The year lasts more than five Earth years.
As in the case of Proxima b, hints of the existence of Proxima c were found in the data of the high-precision HARPS spectrograph installed on the 3.6-meter European Southern Observatory (ESO) telescope in Chile. This tool captures the tiny movements of stars in the direction of the Earth and from it, caused by the gravitational influence of their planets.
Such a considerable distance of Proxima c from its red dwarf made it very difficult to detect, since its influence on the star is rather weak.
-Mario Damaso
According to the astronomer, additional observations of Proxima Centauri using HARPS or similar tools, as well as measurements of the satellite of the European Space Agency (ESA) Gaia will help confirm the exoplanet.
The confirmation of the existence of Proxima c will open many interesting possibilities for us. For example, future telescopes will be able to photograph this exotic extrasolar world. Potentially, it is an impressive natural laboratory for direct visualization.
-Fabio Del Sordo, from of the University of Crete (Greece), who participated in the search for Proxima
Does Proxima c exist?
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