From what this new world could mean, to whether it's one we'll colonize, join me as we explore
the Potential super Earth found orbiting Proxima Centauri, our Neighbor Star!
Let's start at the beginning of all of this, shall we?
When it comes to exploring space, there are many goals that astronomers and astrologers
try to accomplish.
One of the basic ones is just to learn more about the universe as a whole.
Trying to "fill in the pieces" of the puzzle that is the cosmos, and especially in the
most recent of years we've been doing a good job of finding things big and small across
the stars.
Including finding some new things in our very own solar system.
But the other main goal that has taken up a lot of our time is the search for planets
that could not just house life, but also, be a potential colony point for humanity should
the need and technology arise.
We've looked across the stars and have found many planets that COULD be what we are looking
for, but in terms of "immediate evacuation" the best contender that we have is the Alpha
Centauri System.
We've talked about this star and its planets before, but to give you the jist of it, there
is a star within this system we call Proxima Centauri.
It's a Red-Dwarf star that is smaller than our sun, and also emits less heat than the
sun we have.
As we started to observe this system we found a planet we call Proxima Centauri B.
This planet was within the "Habitable Zone" of the star, and given what we know about
it so far, it could just be the planet that we go to in order to live amongst the stars
in more than one place.
In fact, many sci-fi stories have used the Alpha Centauri system as a place where a colony
has been formed, including the recent Netflix reboot of Lost In Space.
Anyway, a lot of research has gone into not just studying Proxima Centauri B, but also,
trying to find ways to get there in a quicker amount of time.
You see, Proxima Centauri is 4.2 light years away from Earth.
That may not sound like a lot, but at our best speeds it'd take tens of thousands of
years depending on the craft we used and whether we'd be going at top speeds of the best craft
that we have.
Obviously, not a good option.
There are initiatives to try and get there faster, including Breakthrough Starshot, but
whether it works or not is very much up in the air.
However, while we are still trying to figure out how we get to Proxima Centuari B, we're
still studying the planet and the system itself to see how much information can be found out
about it, including whether we can indeed live there.
As this research was going on in 2019, a signal suddenly reached Earth that hinted at something
we didn't know about before.
There's a third planet near Proxima Centauri: “We are pleased to show you, for the first
time, what is for us a new candidate planet around Proxima that we call Proxima c,”
Mario Damasso of Italy’s Observatory of Turin initially announced during the 2019
Breakthrough Discuss conference.
A paper describing the potential planet appears today in the journal Science Advances.
“It is only a candidate,” Damasso continued.
“This is very important to underline.”
Why do they say it's only a "candidate"?
That would be because we can't definitively confirm that it is a planet.
We know that SOMETHING else is orbiting the star known as Proxima Centauri, but that doesn't
mean it's definitively a planet.
Because of the system itself, our distance from it, and our own technology at the moment,
there is some margin for error as to what it could be.
I know that may sound a bit pessimistic, but think about it like this, if we were able
to map everything so well...why didn't we know about this sooner?
I mean, we've known about Proxima Centauri and Proxima Centauri B for some time now,
right?
So how could we not know about this potential extra planet?
Star mapping is not an exact science despite what people would love to tell you.
And as others who have confirmed the strange signal near the star will tell you, the system
may hold many more suprises: "Even the closest planetary system to us may
retain interesting surprises," said Fabio Del Sordo in an email, study author and postdoctoral
researcher in the department of physics at the University of Crete.
"Proxima Centauri hosts a planetary system that is much more complex than we knew, and
we do not know how many unknown features are waiting to be discovered."
So, let's assume that this IS indeed a planet, what do we know about it based on the information
we have gotten from these signals?
Well, first and foremost, the planet is huge.
It's what we call a "Super Earth", or a planet that could be like Earth in potentia, but
is so massive that it breaks the scales.
In the case of the now dubbed Proxima C, the planet is roughly at 6 times the size of Earth.
To be clear, that's a big planet, however, the reason it's dubbed a "Super Earth" and
not compared to certain other planets is that though it's bigger than Earth, it's not as
big as Uranus and Neptune (the two planets in our solar system more immediately bigger
than Earth).
Anyway, the question then becomes, "If this is a planet, and if it is something we could
live on...should we live on it?"
While it wouldn't be impossible to live on the planet, Proxima B still remains the best
candidate.
Why is that?
Because while Proxima B live in the "Habitable Zone" where water COULD form without evaporating
immediately due to the suns rays, Proxima C lives outside what we call the "snowline"
of the star.
Basically, if you're near the snowline or beyond it, any water you could have turns
to ice.
And indeed, the position of Proxima C, and estimates based on its size, prove that it's
either a snow planet, or potentially an ice planet.
Again, because it's still a "Candidate" for being a planet, we don't know for sure.
The problem though is that the location of Proxima C (approximately) is causing some
serious confusion on how "snowline planets" form in regards to certain kinds of stars
like the Red Dwarf that it orbits around.
"The formation of a super-Earth well beyond the snowline challenges formation models,
according to which the snowline is a sweet spot for the accretion of super-Earths, due
to the accumulation of icy solids at that location," said Mario Damasso, study author
and postdoctoral researcher at Italy's National Institute for Astrophysics.
"Or it suggests that the protoplanetary disk was much warmer than usually thought.
In general, there's nothing preventing the existence of Proxima c there where we spot
it, but the formation and evolutionary history is a subject worthy of deeper investigation."
Or in lamens terms, we don't full get how Proxima C is existing where it potentially
is based on what we know about solar systems forming.
Which believe it or not is something that happens to us quite a bit, especially in recent
years.
The universe still has plenty of things we don't understand.
But let's get back on topic, even with Proxima C likely being a planet that we can't build
a colony on more than likely, that doesn't mean that it's a planet we just ignore.
After all, we just mentioned that it's a planet that could potentially lead to further explanations
of how certain systems form.
Plus, if it IS a planet, then that would help redefine our galaxy:
"Proxima Centauri is the nearest star to the sun, and this detection would make it the
closest multiplanetary system to us," Del Sordo said.
So even if it doesn't have global impact in terms of it being a place we can settle, it
does have importance in helping redefine the systems near us and how we look at them.
And technically, if Proxima C is out there, and is a planet, that could mean a Proxima
D, or E!
You never know what might just be out there in the stars...
Before we dive deeper into the Proxima Centauri system, be sure to like our video and subscribe
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Now, hearing all of this about how we "somehow" found Proxima Centauri C may have you wondering,
"why is it so strange that we found it?"
That’s because most exoplanets (planets that are outside our own solar system) discovered
so far have been glimpsed via the transit method; that is, they’re detected because
they lie edge-on to our line-of-sight to their host stars, and astronomers can detect a minute
dip in the host star’s light when the planet crosses in front of it.
No such dip in brightness has been seen for Proxima Centauri.
Instead, to find this star’s planets, astronomers have had to use a second planet-hunting technique,
called the radial velocity method.
Radial velocity refers to a slight wobble in the star’s motion as seen from Earth,
caused by the gravity of unseen planets tugging on it.
This is how Proxima Centauri b was found, and now, seemingly, Proxima Centauri c.
This detection method helped determine things about Proxima Centauri C that we couldn't
learn from other methods.
For example, while Proxima Centauri B orbits its star in about 11.2 Earth days, Proxima
Centauri C orbits its star every 5.2 Earth YEARS!
Which greatly helps show why we couldn't find out about it in the usual methods.
Speaking of "usual methods", there are telescopes coming out soon that will possibly be able
to give us a better look at Proxima Centauri C. Usually, these kinds of planets are too
far away to look at, or, they're in such proximity to their stars that they have a "glare" to
them that just makes them look like a giant ball of light.
However, the distance that Centauri C has from Proxima Centauri itself is so far that
it's out of the range of the glare.
"Proxima c could become a prime target for follow-up and characterization with next-generation
direct imaging instrumentation due to the large maximum angular separation of ~1 arc
second from the parent star.
The candidate planet represents a challenge for the models of super-Earth formation and
evolution."
Furthermore, there is a plan to make a 3D Model Map of the galaxy, and using the information
we have, it could further help paint a picture of what Promixa Centauri C could be, and what
it would mean if it is a planet.
What does that mean?
Well, as you hopefully know, planets have a way of affecting things.
And even if it isn't a place we can just go and live in, it is a place we can study and
see how it affects the system around it.
Not unlike how Jupiter and Mars help keep a massive asteroid belt in place, or Neptune
locks down the Kepler Asteroid Belt and so on and so forth.
All of which could be vital in truly determining if Alpha Centauri B is a place we can go and
colonize one day.
"Don't we know if it's able to be colonized or not?"
Well...yes and no.
On one hand, we do know the location of Proxima Centauri B, and we know that the distance
from the sun puts the planet in the habitable zone where water COULD exist...but...there's
a problem.
You see, while Proxima Centauri B is only 1.3 times the size of Earth (which makes it
not too much bigger overall) and takes just 11.2 days to go around the sun (which means
we'll have a lot of years if we live there) the real problem is the star itself.
As noted, it's a Red Dwarf Star, and that means that the sun has certain pros and cons,
including dimmer light and heat compared to our Yellow Dwarf sun that we know and love.
Now, because of distance, a lot of those issues are solve, but, Proxima Centauri has been
known to have solar flares.
Massive bursts of heat and radiation that can decimate planets.
And these kinds of flares are known to destroy atmospheres, and if Proxima Centauri B doesn't
have an atmosphere, or an incredibly thin atmosphere, then there's no way we can live
there.
For a reference on this, look to Mars.
Mars has an atmosphere, but it's incredibly thin due to various factors over its lifetime.
This means that its atmosphere doesn't have the gasses we need to breathe.
Not to mention, the atmosphere has a hole that opens up every few years and drains what
little water vapor and gasses have been stored up.
Plus, because of proximity to the star, that would mean that we'd be exposing ourselves
to potential radiation levels that are FAR beyond what we have to deal with here on Earth.
And if that is true, and the atmosphere and Magnetosphere isn't there to protect the planet,
forget water being around, no life could survive there without severe protection.
I know this all sounds grim, but this is the reality of trying to find another Earth among
the stars with the technology that we have.
We can only do so much from our position, and we have to make guesses, estimates, and
more to determine whether something is feasible or not.
Could we live in the Alpha Centauri System one day?
Sure.
But it's going to take a while, and a lot more research to see what else may be lying
in wait in the system should we get there.
Thanks for watching everyone!
What do you think about Proxima Centauri C?
Do you think that this new planet could give us some answers on the Alpha Centauri system?
Do you think that its sister planet could be where we end up one day?
Let me know in the comments below, be sure to subscribe, and I'll see you next time on
the channel!