Earth like planet discovered orbiting Proxima Centauri. Scientists announced on Wednesday that they had detected an Earth like planet orbiting our nearest star Proxima Centauri which is 4.2 light years from our solar system. This planet named Proxima B is orbiting its parent star in “Goldilock Zone”. Where temperature is not too cold and not too hot.
Goldilock Zone is an orbital area where liquid water can sustain its original state due to the temperature. This Zone temperature is not too hot or cold that liquid water can hold its liquid state. This Earth like planet discovered is closer to its parent star about 5 million miles away than Earth is to its sun which is 93 million miles away. Proxima Centauri is a red dwarf, much smaller and dimmer than our sun. This makes the Proxima b in the safe zone, neither too hot nor too cold for water and therefore, potentially life supporting.
Observations in recent years specially by NASA’s Kepler space telescope have discovered a hundreds of Earth-size worlds in just a part of our galaxy. This discovery will be the ground breaking of search of Earth Like planets because it is possible to reach due to 4.2 light-years or 25 trillion miles, away from Earth. Advancement are made by JPL in the field of efficient and fast fuel that one day will we can travel to other star system.
The size of this Earth like planet discovered is small compared to other cosmic bodies that no picture of the planet available. Dr. Anglada-Escudé and his colleagues detected it indirectly through wobbling of star method. They identified clocklike wobbles in the starlight, as there is slightly red shift on the spectrum. then slightly blue shift.
“We will definitely aim at Proxima,” said Avi Loeb, a Harvard astronomer who is the chairman of an advisory committee for Breakthrough Starshot. “This is like finding prime real estate in our neighborhood.”
This Earth like planet’s proximity to Earth gives hope that one day humans are able to send robotic probes on this planet for the research of habitable worlds.