Daily Current Affairs Article 31th December 2020: Astronomers running the world’s largest initiative to look for alien life have recently picked up an “intriguing” radio wave emission from the direction of Proxima Centauri, the closest star to our Sun.
The news has sparked renewed interest in Proxima Centauri, one of whose planets is believed to revolve in the star’s habitable zone, giving rise to the possibility that it could have, or does, sustain life.
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Proxima Centauri is 4.2 light-years away from the Sun – considered a close distance in cosmic terms.
Its mass is about an eighth of the Sun’s, and it is too dim to be seen with the naked eye from Earth.
Proxima b, one of the two planets that revolve around the star, is the subject of significant curiosity.
Sized 1.2 times larger than Earth, and orbiting its star every 11 days, Proxima b lies in Proxima Centauri’s “Goldilocks zone” i.e. the area around a star where it is not too hot and not too cold for liquid water to exist on the surface of surrounding planets (e.g. Earth is in the Sun’s Goldilocks zone).
However, this does not mean for sure that water is present on Proxima b. It could also be hostile to life, if its atmosphere has been stripped away by solar flares from Proxima Centauri.
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