Latest news with #ProximaCentauri
Forbes
18 hours ago
- Science
- Forbes
NASA's Webb May Have Found A Planet Around The Closest Sun-Like Star
NASA has announced the probable discovery of a giant planet orbiting Alpha Centauri A, one of the closest stars to the solar system. If confirmed, it would be the nearest planet ever detected around a sun-like star. Although it's in the habitable zone of the star, it's a gas giant, so it would not support life as we know it. Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope found a planet while observing Alpha Centauri, a system of three stars orbiting each other — binary stars Alpha Centauri A and B, along with the red dwarf star Proxima Centauri. They're just four light-years from the solar system. Breakthrough Discovery It's been known for some time that three planets are orbiting Proxima Centauri, but planets around Alpha Centauri A — a star much like the sun — have until now proved elusive. The breakthrough came when astronomers used a coronagraph — a disk to block the bright starlight — from Alpha Centauri A, revealing a faint object around it. Around 10,000 times dimmer than the star, the planet is about twice as far from its star as Earth is from the sun. The evidence was published across two papers in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. Possible Saturn-Mass World Based on brightness and simulations, researchers believe the object could be a gas giant about the mass of Saturn — though additional observations will be needed to confirm the planet's existence. The discovery at Alpha Centauri A — the third brightest star in the night sky — could be a massive breakthrough for planetary scientists wanting to learn more about exoplanets (planets orbiting stars other than the sun). 'With this system being so close to us, any exoplanets found would offer our best opportunity to collect data on planetary systems other than our own,' said Charles Beichman, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the NASA Exoplanet Science Institute at Caltech's IPAC astronomy center, co-first author on the new papers. 'Yet, these are incredibly challenging observations to make, even with the world's most powerful space telescope, because these stars are so bright, close, and move across the sky quickly.' Disappearing Planet? However, it's not entirely clear that this planet exists at all. First sighted in 2019 by the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope, astronomers spotted it in August 2024, using the coronagraph in Webb's MIRI instrument. However, light from Alpha Centauri B made it a difficult observation. Attempts to confirm the planet's existence in February 2025 and April 2025 did not succeed. Researchers were not surprised, having modelled where the planet ought to be on its elliptical orbit. 'We found that in half of the possible orbits simulated, the planet moved too close to the star and wouldn't have been visible to Webb in both February and April 2025,' said Ph.D. student Aniket Sanghi of Caltech in Pasadena, California, the co-first author on the two papers covering the team's research. 'Its very existence in a system of two closely separated stars would challenge our understanding of how planets form, survive, and evolve in chaotic environments.' It's hoped that NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, set to launch as soon as 2026, could complement Webb's infrared data with visible-light observations, helping confirm the planet and figure out its size and composition. Either way, Alpha Centauri A's gas giant will be a prime target for the next generation of astronomers and telescopes. Wishing you clear skies and wide eyes.
Boston Globe
a day ago
- Science
- Boston Globe
NASA discovers possible new planet
Advertisement The find was announced in two papers that have been accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. It is a potential preview of the types of discoveries that will be possible in the future as astronomers' tools for hunting exoplanets — particularly ones like Earth — evolve. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Three stars make up Alpha Centauri. However, only two, Alpha Centauri A and Alpha Centauri B, are like our sun. They are locked in close orbit around each other. Circling this pair from farther away is a faint red dwarf known as Proxima Centauri. The stars themselves are 'pretty run-of-the mill,' said Charles Beichman, an astronomer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the California Institute of Technology. But the system is a touchstone for investigations of stars like our sun, Beichman added, because cosmically speaking, 'it's right next door.' Advertisement So far, only Proxima Centauri has known planets. Astronomers discovered those worlds indirectly, by measuring the way their gravity tugs on their star. Snapping an image of a planet is a more direct method, but also more difficult. Astronomers must isolate the faint light emitted by the planet from the more vibrant glow of its host star. Direct imaging so far has best been used to find young, massive planets, because they are hotter and burn more brightly, said Aniket Sanghi, a graduate student at Caltech involved in the discovery. With the Webb telescope, that trend may change. Launched in 2021, scientists designed the space telescope to peer into the far reaches of the cosmos. But it trained its eyes much closer to home in August 2024, when astronomers pointed it at Alpha Centauri. A coronagraph on the telescope blocked most of the glow from Alpha Centauri A. That, combined with clever image processing to remove the glare from Alpha Centauri B, was enough for the astronomers to make out a faint speck of light — a possible planet. Further analysis ruled out the speck as a photo-bombing asteroid, a background galaxy, or an image artifact. 'We spent over the past year trying to kill this object in our images, but we haven't been successful in doing so,' Sanghi said. The planet, if it is one, is about the size of Jupiter and has about the mass of Saturn. It orbits Alpha Centauri A every two Earth-years at roughly one to two times the distance between our sun and Earth. It has a temperature of about minus 55 degrees Fahrenheit. Advertisement To claim a discovery, astronomers will need to find the planet again, either with the Webb telescope, with another observatory on the ground, or in space. The Extremely Large Telescope, a European observatory under construction in Chile, could help. So could NASA's Roman Space Telescope, scheduled to launch by May 2027. Direct imaging of planets is difficult, even more so when there are multiple sources of light close by, as in Alpha Centauri. But the technique has high reward: It yields a wealth of information about the planets, including their size, mass, temperature, and distance from the host star. 'This is really the only technique that we'll ever be able to use to look for biosignatures, or any sort of signatures of habitability,' Beichman said. The Habitable Worlds Observatory, a space telescope proposed as NASA's next flagship mission, will use direct imaging to hunt for Earthlike exoplanets around stars dozens of light-years away. According to Beichman, discoveries like a giant gas planet much closer to home are headway toward that goal. 'This is the first step,' he said. 'We're doing it with Webb.' This article originally appeared in
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Science
- Yahoo
Proposed spacecraft could carry up to 2,400 people on a one-way trip to the nearest star system, Alpha Centauri
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Engineers have designed a spacecraft that could take up to 2,400 people on a one-way trip to Alpha Centauri, the star system closest to our own. The craft, called Chrysalis, could make the 25 trillion mile (40 trillion kilometer) journey in around 400 years, the engineers say in their project brief, meaning many of its potential passengers would only know life on the craft. Chrysalis is designed to house several generations of people until it enters the star system, where it could shuttle them to the surface of the planet Proxima Centuri b — an Earth-size exoplanet that is thought to be potentially habitable. The project won first place in the Project Hyperion Design Competition, a challenge that requires teams to design hypothetical multigenerational ships for interstellar travel. Life on the Chrysalis Before boarding the ship, the Chrysalis project would require initial generations of ship inhabitants to live in and adapt to an isolated environment in Antarctica for 70 to 80 years to ensure psychological wellbeing. The ship could theoretically be constructed in 20 to 25 years and retains gravity through constant rotation. The vessel, which would measure 36 miles (58 km) in length, would be constructed like a Russian nesting doll, with several layers encompassing each other around a central core. The layers include communal spaces, farms, gardens, homes, warehouses and other shared facilities, each powered by nuclear fusion reactors. The core in the center of the vehicle hosts the shuttles that could bring people to Proxima Centuri b, as well as all of Chrysalis' communication equipment. Related: Will we ever reach Alpha Centauri, our closest neighboring star system? The layer closest to Chrysalis' core is dedicated to food production, nurturing plants, fungi, microbes, insects and livestock in controlled environments. To preserve biodiversity, different environments including tropical and boreal forests would be maintained. The second level from the center provides communal spaces, like parks, schools, hospitals and libraries, for the ship's inhabitants. The next shell would then hold dwellings for individual households, equipped with air circulation and heat exchangers. Work happens on the next level up, where there are facilities for industries ranging from recycling to pharmaceuticals to structural manufacturing. The fifth and outermost shell would serve as a warehouse for varied types of resources, materials, equipment and machinery. The Chrysalis' designers suggest that robots could run this level, reducing the need for human physical labor. Births would be planned in Chrysalis to ensure the population stays at a sustainable level, which the research team determined to be about 1,500 people — 900 people less than the ship's total capacity. Those responsible for the ship's governance would collaborate with artificial intelligence, "allowing for resilience of the whole social system, better knowledge transfer between the different generations of inhabitants and a deeper vision of the overall dynamics of the Chrysalis spaceship complex," the project engineers wrote in their pitch. RELATED STORIES —ChatGPT could pilot a spacecraft shockingly well, early tests find —China wants to build a mega spaceship that's nearly a mile long —Here's every spaceship that's ever carried an astronaut into orbit This plan is purely hypothetical, as some of the required technology, like commercial nuclear fusion reactors, don't yet exist. However, hypothetical projects like this one can still add to our existing knowledge base and help engineers improve upcoming designs. The Project Hyperion jury wrote on its website that Chrysalis was impressive for its "system-level coherence and innovative design of the modular habitat structure" and "overall depth of detail." The winning team of five researchers was awarded $5,000 USD. Human spaceflight quiz: How well do you know our journey into space?
UPI
2 days ago
- Science
- UPI
James Webb Space Telescope discovers evidence of a new planet
Peering deep into the heart of our Milky Way galaxy, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope reveals a rich tapestry of more than half a million stars. Scientists announced Thursday evidence of a new planet. NASA via Hubble Space Telescope Aug. 7 (UPI) -- NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has discovered evidence of a giant planet orbiting a star in the solar system closest to Earth, the administration announced Thursday. The Alpha Centauri triple star system, four light-years from Earth, has long been at the center of scientists' search for life on other planets. This discovery was an important step forward in that search, they said. "While there are three confirmed plants orbiting Proxima Centauri, the presence of other worlds surrounding Alpha Centauri A and Alpha Centauri B has proved challenging to confirm," a release from NASA said. Alpha Centauri A, Alpha Centauri B and the faint red dwarf star Proxima Centauri comprise the bigger Alpha Centauri, which is visible in the far southern sky. The discovery announced Thursday provides the strongest evidence yet of a gas giant orbiting Alpha Centauri A, and has been accepted for publication by the Astrophysical Journal Letters. "If confirmed, the planet would be the closest to Earth that orbits the habitable zone of a Sun-like star," the NASA release continued. "However, because the planet candidate is a gas giant, scientists say it would not support life as we know it." The James Webb Space Telescope was designed to find the most distant galaxies in the universe, but the operations had to customize the device's "observation sequence" to search for the gas giant.
Gizmodo
3 days ago
- Science
- Gizmodo
If This Planet Is Real, It Would Break So Many Records
Exoplanet hunters have had an eye on Alpha Centauri, the closest star system to Earth at just four light-years away, for decades. We know that it consists of two Sun-like stars, Alpha Centauri A and Alpha Centauri B, as well as a faint red dwarf star, Proxima Centauri. But while researchers have previously discovered three exoplanets orbiting Proxima Centauri, the search for more worlds orbiting the system's other two stars has proven difficult. Until now: New evidence from the James Webb Space Telescope indicates there is a gas giant planet in orbit around Alpha Centauri A. And what's more, it is likely in the star's habitable zone. Researchers described this tantalizing candidate planet in two studies published today on the preprint server arXiv, with the papers forthcoming in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. If the planet is confirmed, it would break numerous records. It would be the first exoplanet ever observed around a star about the same age and temperature as our Sun, and the nearest exoplanet to Earth orbiting in the habitable zone of a Sun-like star. It would also be the closest planet to its host star ever to be imaged directly—it is likely just two astronomical units, or twice the distance between the Sun and the Earth, from its host star—rather than observed using indirect means. 'With this system being so close to us, any exoplanets found would offer our best opportunity to collect data on planetary systems other than our own,' Charles Beichman, co-lead author of the studies and an executive director of the NASA Exoplanet Science Institute, said in a statement. 'Yet, these are incredibly challenging observations to make, even with the world's most powerful space telescope, because these stars are so bright, close, and move across the sky quickly,' he explained: The closer a planet is to its star, the harder it is to spot. Researchers began the observations in August 2024, using a device on Webb's Mid-Infrared Instrument known as a coronagraphic mask. It allows researchers to block out the glare of both Alpha Centauri A and Alpha Centauri B in observations in order to see any orbiting planets, revealing the evidence of this potential record-breaking exoplanet. If the planet really does exist and orbits in Alpha Centauri A's habitable zone—a point where liquid water can exist on a planet's surface—its mid-infrared brightness indicates it's a gas giant of about the same mass of Saturn. That unfortunately means we would not expect to find any signs of life, at least as we know it. In fact it is very unlikely any world orbiting Alpha Centuari A could sustain liquid water in this zone, the researchers write, because 'the elliptical orbit of the candidate giant planet sweeps through most of Alpha Centauri A's habitable zone, making it unlikely that smaller rocky planets could survive.' That's a bummer, because rocky exoplanets within habitable zones are the focus of the search for extraterrestrial life. Nonetheless, the potential planet is 'the most similar in temperature and age to the giant planets in our solar system and nearest to our home, Earth,' explained Sanghi Aniket Sanghi, a graduate student at the California Institute of Technology who was also co-lead author on the studies. 'Its very existence in a system of two closely separated stars would challenge our understanding of how planets form, survive, and evolve in chaotic environments,' Sanghi added. It remains to be seen what future observations will reveal about the potential gas giant. Some—and especially fans of the James Cameron movie Avatar—may be particularly interested in learning if it has any moons, like the one on which the film's Na'vi are supposed to live.
