Clear evidence of a planet orbiting Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the Solar System, has been found by an international team of scientists led by astronomers at Queen Mary.
Using facilities operated by ESO (the European Southern Observatory) and other telescopes, the research, which is published in the journal Nature, reveals a world with a similar mass to Earth orbiting around Proxima Centauri.
The planet, called Proxima b, orbits its parent star every 11 days and has a temperature suitable for liquid water to exist on its surface. This rocky world is a little more massive than the Earth, and is the closest planet outside our Solar System. Planets around other stars are commonly referred to as exoplanets.
Scientists are excited because Proxima b may also be the closest possible home for life outside the Solar System. This discovery will be the beginning of extensive further observations, both with current instruments and with the next generation of giant telescopes such as ESO’s European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT). Proxima b will be a prime target for the hunt for evidence of life elsewhere in the Universe.
The team involves more than 30 researchers from different countries and institutions, and includes three UK universities. The latest observing campaign was called Pale Red Dot and involved looking for the tiny back and forth wobble of the star that would be caused by the gravitational pull of a possible orbiting planet. In addition to acquiring the new data, the campaign was also a public outreach exercise in which the team, led by Dr Anglada-Escudé reported the progress of the observations in real-time via a website, and social media.