A New Planet Has Just Been Discovered Orbiting The Nearest Star to The Sun
What appears to be a teeny tiny alien world has just been found orbiting the Solar System's closest stellar neighbor.
The exoplanet candidate, named Proxima d, orbits a star named Proxima Centauri: a small, dim red dwarf star just 4.2 light-years from the Sun.
Amazingly, the exoplanet is just a quarter of the mass of Earth. That makes it one of the smallest exoplanets ever detected, and the smallest detected by observing the exoplanet's gravitational effect on its star.
The discovery also marks the third exoplanet found orbiting Proxima Centauri, and although the newly discovered world would not be habitable, its detection suggests that there's a whole wealth of exoplanets out there just outside the reach of our current capabilities.
"The discovery shows that our closest stellar neighbor seems to be packed with interesting new worlds, within reach of further study and future exploration," says astrophysicist João Faria of the Instituto de Astrofísica e Ciências do Espaço in Portugal.
