Study finds Earth-like planet within our reach

We’ve identified thousands of planets outside our solar system, including a couple hundred that appear to be capable of supporting life. Almost all of them are hundreds or thousands of light years away – too far for humans to get there within our lifetimes.

However, astronomers from the European Southern Observatory (ESO) are poised to announce the discovery of a habitable planet orbiting a start just 4.25 light years away, according to a new report from the German weekly Der Spiegel.

The planet is orbiting Proxima Centauri, a start that astronomers have known about for more than 100 years. The star is actually in a trinary system with two other stars, Alpha Centauri A and B. Proxima Centauri is a low-mass red dwarf located about .23 light years from the two Alpha Centauris and around .12 light years closer to Earth than its neighbors, making it the closest star to our solar system.

Planet orbiting in Proxima Centauri’s habitable zone

According to the German media outlet’s report, the newly-identified planet is located in Proxima Centauri’s “habitable zone,” the region of space around a star where a planet could have liquid water on its surface. Liquid water is essential to sustain life as we know it.

The prospect of an Earth-like planet that is within our reach is tantalizing, but the Der Speigel report is based on “anonymous sources” at the ESO and the space organization has yet to officially confirm the story. Further casting doubt on the possibility is the ESO’s 2012 identification of Alpha Centauri Bb, a planet declared to be the ‘closest exoplanet to Earth’ at the time. Subsequent analyses indicated it was a false positive caused by a faulty data analysis.

The German report insisted the latest discovery is legitimate and is the result of intense and lengthy study.

“Finding small celestial bodies is a lot of hard work,” an unnamed source said. “We were moving at the technically feasible limit of measurement.”

The report also said the ESO would be announcing the discovery at the end of August.

If the planet does exist, project are currently underway that could make investigating it a possibility within this century. Backed by Stephen Hawking and Mark Zuckerberg, Project Starshot is a program dedicated to developing a laser-sail nanocraft capable of reaching the Alpha Centauri system. The project has calimed such a craft could reach up to 20 percent the speed of light, which means Proxima Centauri could be reached about 20 years after launch.

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Image credit: NASA

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