The proxima centauri .....
proximal centaur I |
The star Proxima isn’t visible to the attention , but it’s one among the foremost noted stars in Earth’s sky. That’s because it's considered to be a part of the Alpha Centauri star system, a triple system, and therefore the nearest star system to our sun. Of the three stars in Alpha Centauri , Proxima is assumed to be the one actually closest to our sun, at 4.22 light-years away. The image above – from the Hubble Space Telescope – is one among the simplest we’ve seen at showing Proxima clearly.
proxima centauri |
If it’s so nearby, why can’t we see Proxima with the eye? It’s because Proxima is so small. It’s a red dwarf star star with only about an eighth of the mass of the sun. Faint red Proxima – at only 3,100 degrees K (5,120 F) and 500 times less bright than our sun – is almost a fifth of a light-year from Alpha Centauri A and B.
This great distance from the 2 primary stars within the system is what calls into question its status as a part of a triple star system.
On the opposite hand, although Proxima is way from Alpha Centauri A and B, it's not very faraway from us. And thus – over time – we will see its motion through space.
Alpha Centauri A and B are a double-star system, and a 3rd star, Proxima – whose location with reference to the opposite two is indicated here by an arrow – might or won't be gravitationally sure to them. Proxima is that the closest star to Earth. Image via the ecu Southern Observatory.
In 2016, the ecu Southern Observatory announced the invention of Proxima b, a planet orbiting Proxima at a distance of roughly 7.5 million km (4.7 million miles) with an orbital period of roughly 11.2 Earth days. Its estimated mass is a minimum of 1.3 times that of the world . The equilibrium temperature of Proxima b is estimated to be within the range of where water could exist as liquid on its surface, thus placing it within the habitable zone of Proxima . But a 2017 study suggests that the exoplanet doesn't have an Earth-like atmosphere. which will indicate that radiation from its star would drain an Earth-like atmosphere 10,000 times faster than on Earth, although because Proxima may be a red dwarf star and a red dwarf , whether it could support life is disputed. Previous searches for orbiting companions had ruled out the presence of brown dwarfs and supermassive planets.
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