Proxima Centauri - Possible Earth like planet found

a reply to: OneGoal

Was just about to make a topic on this, was very happy to hear the news. Sounds like a wonderful find for obvious reasons. It seems it would be around 4.5 light years away roughly, so even if we was to signal this planet we could see a reply back if life was at a similar stage to us. That is exciting on its own.

I do love it when science really does discover some amazing new finds.

a reply to: PhloydPhan

How would a craft such you describe make a return journey?
Or is it a one way thing?

cool thread.. This thread should have 100 flags. Stupid election is ruining Ats.

A earth like planet has not been found. Just a really good possibility.

From:
www.theweathernetwork.com...

There's a caveat here beyond simply saying that "the results aren't out yet" and "subsequent studies may show that the planet isn't there," though. Even if Proxima Centauri has a rocky, Earth-sized planet orbiting in its habitable zone, there's no guarantee that it will actually have life. Red dwarf stars, although the longest-lived of all stars, are notoriously temperamental, and frequently blast out immense flares and solar eruptions. Proxima Centauri is no exception to this rule, and with the habitable zone of a red dwarf being much closer in than for a Sun-like star, this planet could be regularly bathed in intense stellar radiation, possibly rendering it sterile.

ESO erroneously "found" a planet in 2012.

From: www.universetoday.com...

In addition, they claim that the discovery was made by the European Southern Observatory (ESO) using the La Silla Observatory‘s reflecting telescope. Coincidentally, it was this same observatory that announced the discovery of Alpha Centauri Bb back in 2012, which was also declared to be “the closest exoplanet to Earth”. Unfortunately, subsequent analysis cast doubt on its existence, claiming it was a spurious artifact of the data analysis.

a reply to: OneGoal

As with the discovery of pulsars and quasars, it seems that the discovery of this nearby planet was held secret for a time.

Why is that unless they thought of those three finds that they were connected to UFO answer we have sought for half a century and just maybe this find is the answer. And here it is in our back yard, just a bit away by a good UFO flight.

Mandela effect world... Possibly new or old. New, I want to live in it. Old get me out of it.

a reply to: dougie6665

Colonizing Mars will require terraforming and I'm pretty sure we'll accomplish that before even leaving our solar system.

a reply to: Puppylove

Not if it's a good turn key starter planet. Good location. Wonder what the school district is like?

originally posted by: Aliensun
a reply to: OneGoal

As with the discovery of pulsars and quasars, it seems that the discovery of this nearby planet was held secret for a time.

Why is that unless they thought of those three finds that they were connected to UFO answer we have sought for half a century and just maybe this find is the answer. And here it is in our back yard, just a bit away by a good UFO flight.

Probably because in 2012 the same observatory found a planet that turned out to just be a data flaw. Its more about saving face than UFOs.

Somone need to stop 'testing" the em drive and just build one and send it up to space and see if it works. We can figure out how later...

originally posted by: Aliensun
a reply to: OneGoal

As with the discovery of pulsars and quasars, it seems that the discovery of this nearby planet was held secret for a time.

I think that there is a very significant difference between "held secret" and "no announcement was made until the data was verified and the observations confirmed."

The European Southern Observatory held the scheduled press conference today. It's reported that the information is embargoed through 5 p.m. Central European Time, which is 4 p.m. GMT; Noon, Eastern Daylight Time; 9 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time. It's not clear why they wanted the news withheld for an additional 4 hours past the press conference.

One suspects that they exercised extraordinary care in establishing that an Earth-like planet actually is in orbit of Proxima Centauri, after the disappointing incident of just a few years ago. At that time, this same observatory reported a planet in orbit of Alpha Centauri B, then had to essentially withdraw the discovery as a mistake on their part. An independent analysis of their data showed no such planet

Oh great, now I suppose NASA is going to want to go there and check it out. How much is this going to cost us taxpayers?

a reply to: OneGoal

The story is breaking now that they confirmed a planet...and orbiting within the goldilocks zone...Proxima B...

If you want to start another thread??

Below find a link to an article giving the details of the newly discovered planet. The European Southern Observatory reports that it has an orbit about of only about 11 days. Given the weak light from Proxima Centauri, a red dwarf star, this would still allow the planet to have liquid water at its surface, assuming it has an atmosphere.

news.nationalgeographic.com...

I thought this is a better article than most?

www.scientificamerican.com...

The interesting thing for me is that it orbits round a red dwarf star which are known to burn for trillions of years, so that may mean that any intelligent life from the planet would be so far advanced than us, that we could be there Trueman show...

www.space.com...

a reply to: Davg80

this news has just come on my national news...... and they are saying it is a huge discovery and it may harbour life, could this be the continuation of the disclosure process, why haven't they found this planet first, before the plethora of discoveries they have already made of planets that are in the "goldilocks" zone of Stars. i would have thought this planet with it being the closest would have been found first.........?

www.bbc.co.uk...

Several things weighed against the planet Proxima B being found earlier than it was, despite its nearness.
For a long time, red dwarf stars like this weren't thought about too seriously as having planets. Stars similar to our Sun were given much more attention.

Then, too, the champion planet finder, the Kepler Space Telescope, directed its fixed gaze at another section of the sky entirely.

Consider, as well, that Proxima is a very dim star, indeed, only about 1/1000 the brightness of our Sun. That complicates the search for planets there by the radial velocity method, which was the means by which the planet was finally found.

Also-- planets about as small as Earth, as Proxima B is, exert very little gravitational influence on their stars, so signs of their presence are extremely weak, and hard to see.
Finally, Proxima is an unusually 'noisy' star, in that if flares a good deal, which tends to obscure fine measurements of its radial motion. This makes faint planets like Proxima B especially difficult to detect.

a reply to: Davg80

I think it had to do with four factors. And some early misconceptions. Warning, this is filtered through my simple mind.

One, the early push was to find a star with a specific wobble as found in our star by the placement of Jupiter. This blinded the astronomers in the 90s. Then a researcher was able to figure out the search was too specific. That led to the discoveries of gas giants extremely close to their stars. I think they found one gas giant makes a complete orbit every four days.

Two, only recently have observatories development instrumentation that sees a small planet pass in front of a Star, or wobbles produced by small planets.

Three, astronomers finally put aside trying to find the wobbles produced by gas giants. This new school of though, and better wobble detection, made this discovery possible.

Four, changing school of thought on a red dwarfs and planet placement.

Still, red dwarfs can have radiation storms that might make a planet sterile. This Goldilocks zone might not be so golden?


Also, being close to the star, was there enough comment activity to seed the plant with water and an atmosphere?