The last week was quite a busy one for astronomers and planet hunters. However, the curiosity was soon relieved with the discovery of the closest Earth-like planet orbiting a star called Proxima Centauri - Proxima b.
On the evening of August 26, Friday, people received a chance to have a closer look at the newly discovered exoplanet, according to Gizmodo. The live broadcast was conducted at 8 PM ET/5 PM PT with the help of Slooh, a robotic telescope service.
It is estimated that the mass of Proxima b is almost 1.3 times the mass of the Earth. It orbits around the red dwarf star, Proxima Centauri, which is just 4.25 light years away from Earth. In fact, the star is closer to the Earth by a fraction than the famous binary stars - Alpha Centauri A and B.
Paul Cox, a Slooh team member recently revealed that the new telescopes were placed in Chile back in 2007 and since then, the telescope has been observing Proxima Centauri as one of its main targets. However, after the recent heads up that a new exoplanet has been discovered revolving around Proxima Centauri, the telescope has been imaging the dwarf star every day and night.
Moreover, the fact that interests researchers the most is that the newly discovered exoplanet could be habitable like Earth. This is because it is in a position that could be most suitable for supporting water in a liquid form.
"With the possibility that liquid water exists on Proxima b, who knows, there may be some Centaurian amateur astronomers gazing back at us every night," Cox said in a press statement released by Slooh.
Proxima b was initially discovered by a team of researchers at ESO. The recent live broadcast of the exoplanet was hosted by Eric Edelman. He was further joined by Michael Endl, who was a part of the ESO's discovery team and Lisa Kaltnegger of Cornell university.
Kaltnegger talked about the impact that the discovery of the new exoplanet could have on extraterrestrial intelligence and the possibility of finding extraterrestrial life any time soon.
The following video talks about the news exoplanet in habitable zone: