Scientists confirmed the discovery of a planet in a nearby star – BBC

The rumor about the opening at the nearest star is potentially habitable exoplanet was not only a sensation, but also true. Scientists led by Gillema Anglada-Escudé from the University of London Queen Mary really found a solid planet near Proxima Centauri -. Nearest the star of the Sun, located on us “only” four light-years

As it is not seldom the case in the past years, information on such an important scientific discovery could not keep a secret and leaked before the official announcement of the results: a week ago about this, citing unnamed sources, reported German magazine Der Spiegel. A similar situation was with the detection of gravitational waves LIGO experiment, when the information about it first appeared on blogs, and on the opening of Italian scientists of superluminal neutrinos, which, because of detected errors in the end did not take place.

At this time, the opening of really it took place, and the proof of this was the article in the journal Nature, simultaneously with the release of a special press conference of scientists was convened. Formally, this is just another one of about three thousand exoplanets discovered by scientists significantly in recent years. Moreover, according to current estimates scientists, in our Milky Way galaxy hundreds of billions of exoplanets can exist (which is consistent with the predictions of even Joseph Shklovsky), are potentially habitable – tens of billions.
However, all open in recent years have found an exoplanet at a relatively distant stars, the distance to which is measured in tens or hundreds of light-years

It is therefore important question. Is there a planetary system in our nearest star – Proxima Centauri

This is a low-mass star with a mass only 12% of the Sun’s mass refers to the red M-type dwarfs. By the way, in these stars, astronomers are trying to find small potentially habitable planets. This is due to the fact that the most reliable method of opening – Doppler spectroscopy – works best on light stars. It consists in fixing the smallest star vibrations to the beat of the rotation of the planets around them. Spotting these fluctuations allow sensitive spectrometers installed on the best telescope in the world. Most of these devices are now able to observe the cyclic motion of the stars with a human walking pace – a few meters per second. That, in fact, and is bounded below by the mass offered by the planets – the lighter of them cause movement of the stars, are not recorded by spectrometers

For example, the Earth causes the Sun to go back and forth with the speed. 0.09 m / s and advanced spectrometers have found she could not.

in addition, red dwarfs cooler than the Sun, and it means that the zone of habitability of these stars is about 10 times closer than that of the sun. For the first time the signal is weak, indicating the presence of light the planet Proxima Centauri, the team Anglada-Escude won in the 2000-2008 years, but was unable to confirm these observations. Only now with the help of modern spectrometer the HARPS, mounted on one of the telescopes of the Chilean La Silla Observatory, they have shown confidence –

planet exists, and the period of its circulation is 11 Earth days.

Moreover, the magnitude of the gravitational effects on the star was able to determine that the planet is solid, just 1.3 times as massive as Earth. But its orbit is 7 million kilometers – only 5% of the distance from the earth to the sun

The confidence of scientists based on the fact that the signal of the presence of the world is based on an analysis of two unrelated sets of data obtained at different times with a difference. in ten years. Could this be the planet habitable? Maybe, although its presence in the zone of possible habitability does not commit to this, but only allows. The problem is that M dwarfs are more active than the Sun, and in the X-ray “light” 400 times stronger than our star. Therefore, it is likely that the energy it flares easily

could deprive the planet’s atmosphere or kill the most primitive forms of life, if ever were born.

«Once we have established that the stars shake not associated with spots on it, we realized that there must be a planet in an area where there may be liquid water, which was exciting. If further studies confirm that the atmosphere of a planet can support life, it will be the most important discovery of all we made, “- said co-discoverer John Barnes.

discovery adds piquancy by the fact that it was to Alpha Centauri, which is part in a single system with the star Proxima Centauri, it is planned to send a spacecraft at a rate of 160 million km / h in the framework of the project made a lot of noise Breakthrough Starshot . About the start of this project, the Russian businessman Yuri Milner and the famous physicist Stephen Hawking announced April 12 in New York. It is assumed that such a nano-satellite, “spurred” a laser from the Earth will be able to fly to Alpha Centauri at a rate of 20% of the speed of light and reach the stars “in one generation,” 20-30 years.

And if this audacious project will take place, apparently, the satellite did not go to the “naked” stars.

the researchers said that now the planet from the nearest star would be the main purpose of further research using more sensitive instruments, including after the commissioning of the largest telescope European Extremely large telescope.