Meet the planet neighbors
The newly discovered second planet, Proxima c, is likely a super-Earth with a mass larger than Earth's but smaller than Uranus and Neptune. The researchers estimate that it completes an orbit of Proxima Centauri every 5.2 Earth years. The first planet found around the star, Proxima b, is six times smaller and is 30 times closer to its star, which also makes it warmer, the researchers said. Proxima b is 1.3 times the size of Earth and orbits its star every 11.2 days. It is in a close orbit of Proxima Centauri: only 5% of the distance between the Earth and the sun. They are even closer together than Mercury and the sun. But because its star is much cooler and fainter than our sun, Proxima b has a temperature that is suitable for liquid water to exist on the surface without evaporating. Given the proximity to its star, Proxima b is also subject to less pleasant factors like ultraviolet and X-ray flares that are 100 times the intensity of what Earth receives from the sun. If there is life on the planet, it would be affected by this radiation, but it is pure speculation as to what kind of effect. Even though Proxima b is within the habitable zone of its star, meaning liquid water could exist on the surface, that doesn't mean it's actually habitable. And the radiation it likely faces has likely stripped away key elements for life like hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen. The newly discovered planet is intriguing because further study could reveal how low-mass planets form around low-mass stars, the researchers said. And this particular planet flips the typical theory of super-Earth planet formation on its head. It's beyond the "snowline" of the system, which suggests any water on the planet would be frozen. Super-Earths typically form near the snowline, but not beyond it. "The formation of a super-Earth well beyond the snowline challenges formation models, according to which the snowline is a sweet spot for the accretion of super-Earths, due to the accumulation of icy solids at that location," said Mario Damasso, study author and postdoctoral researcher at Italy's National Institute for Astrophysics. "Or it suggests that the protoplanetary disk was much warmer than usually thought. In general, there's nothing preventing the existence of Proxima c there where we spot it, but the formation and evolutionary history is a subject worthy of deeper investigation."DISCLAIMER: The Views, Comments, Opinions, Contributions and Statements made by Readers and Contributors on this platform do not necessarily represent the views or policy of Multimedia Group Limited.
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