Scientists have found an Earth-like planet orbiting the Earth's neighboring star, Proxima Centauri. The planet has been temporarily named Proxima B by the international team of astronomer's that discovered it. The newly discovered planet is roughly 30 percent larger than the Earth and orbits a star that is smaller than ours.
Proxima B was discovered by an international team of astronomers led by Guillem Anglada-Escudé of Queen Mary University, London. According to Jeff Coughlin, a SETI astronomer who is working with NASA's Kepler planet-hunting mission, the most amazing thing about the planet is how closely it orbits the Earth's neighboring star, Proxima Centauri. The star is 4.2 light-years away from the earth, which is approximately 25 trillion miles.
The discovery of Proxima B came four months after the announcement of the project "Breakthrough Starshot," an initiative to engineer and send a tiny spacecraft to the Earth's nearest star. Now, Pete Worden, the executive director of "Breakthrough Starshot" and former head of NASA's Ames Research Center, has expressed excitement over the project's prospective planet.
Warden said during a recent interview that "We are really excited, and, to use the U.S. term, pumped, about this discovery. We're on our way."
Victoria Meadows of the University of Washington said that Proxima B could be the closest and most accessible planet closest to the solar system's habitable zone. At the moment, it may not have an atmosphere that can sustain living organisms. Scientists would find ways to determine what is needed for living creatures to thrive on the planet.
There are also no available instruments to take pictures of the planet, but there are already efforts to build to study the new planet.