Astronomers Believe They Have Found , a Third Planet , Orbiting Proxima Centauri.
According to a new study, our solar system's nearest neighbor may be host to three planets.
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'Scientific American' reports that astronomers believe they have detected a third planet circling Proxima Centauri.
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The Proxima Centauri system is centered around a red dwarf star just 4.2 light-years away from Earth.
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If the findings are confirmed, the candidate world, known as Proxima d, would be one of the lightest known exoplanets, coming in at just 25% of Earth's mass.
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The discovery shows that our closest stellar neighbor seems to be packed with interesting new worlds, within reach of further study and future exploration, João Faria, study lead author and researcher at the Instituto de Astrofísica e Ciências do Espaço in Portugal, via 'Scientific American'.
'Scientific American' reports that Proxima d was detected using ESPRESSO, an instrument on the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO) Very Large Telescope in Chile.
ESPRESSO relies on the radial velocity technique, the detection of slight wobbles in a star's motion that suggest the gravitational pull of an orbiting planet.
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The team's findings were published on February 10 in the journal 'Astronomy & Astrophysics.'.
This achievement is extremely important.
It shows that the radial velocity technique has the potential to unveil a population of light planets, like our own, that are expected to be the most abundant in our galaxy and that can potentially host life as we know it, Pedro Figueira, ESPRESSO instrument scientist at ESO in Chile, via 'Scientific American'.
This result clearly shows what ESPRESSO is capable of and makes me wonder about what it will be able to find in the future, Pedro Figueira, ESPRESSO instrument scientist at ESO in Chile, via 'Scientific American'
