Third Planet Found Orbiting Our Solar System's Nearest Star
Astronomers say they have discovered a third planet orbiting Proxima Centauri, circling the star outside its habitable zone in space, essentially shutting the doors for finding liquid water and possible life-like conditions. Located in the Centaurus constellation, the star is barely over four light-years away from Earth, but due to its low luminosity, it is not visible to the naked eyes. Occasionally, it has been documented to exude brilliant bursts of starlight.
Interestingly, Proxima Centauri is part of a triple-star system that has two other stellar companions named Alpha Centauri A and B. Scientists have already known about two planets circling the star, calling them Proxima Centauri b and Proxima Centauri c. But in 2019, a team of international astronomers with experts from the University of Geneva discovered signs of a third planet with a predicted mass of about 0.29 Earth masses.
Related: Search For Life: Hundreds Of New Exoplanets Discovered By Astronomers
A study published in Astronomy & Astrophysics now presents evidence of a third planet, called Proxima Centauri d, that falls in the sub-Earth category of planetary bodies owing to their mass. Observed using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT) in Chile, the third planet discovered circling Proxima Centauri has a mass of about one-fourth (0.26 ± 0.05) that of Earth and is said to be one of the lightest exoplanets ever found. It circles around Proxima Centauri at a distance of about 4.3 million kilometers, which is said to be less than a tenth of Mercury’s distance from the Sun, measured to be 57,900,000 kilometers as per NASA data.
What is really fascinating is that Proxima Centauri d is that it takes just about five days to
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