On August 24th, astronomers discovered the existence of a planet orbiting Proxima Centauri - a star within the Alpha Centauri system. There are three stars in the system, Proxima being the smallest. It just so happens that it is also the closest star to us beyond the sun itself. The exciting part of this planetary discovery is the nature of the planet. They seem to think that this new planet may be hospitable enough to contain life.

Named Proxima Centauri B, this Earth-sized planet has caught the attention of the entire astronomical community. The key part here is that the planet resides in what astronomers call the "habitable zone" of Proxima Centauri. You see, based on a star's luminosity and derived mass, temperature, etc., we can determine the range of distances from that star in which water would most likely naturally exist on a planet in its system. This planet is within that range. For us, this has potential to be a fantastic feat in astronomical discovery. However, the key word in that sentence is certainly "potential."

There is so much uncertainty in this planet's life-sustaining abilities that it's almost not worth the hype that it has received. At least not yet. Understand that yes, this suggests there is a possibility of the existence of life on another planet. Honestly, that's very exciting! The thing is, there are so many more factors that we need to figure out before we can have any confidence that this may be true. Astronomers can use information from the light reflected and absorbed by a planet to determine its approximate atmospheric composition. I imagine that researchers will gather as much data on this as possible in order to determine a more definitive idea of Proxima B's chances of inhabiting life. Without a non-toxic, oxygen-rich atmosphere, a planet would have a tough time keeping anything alive, at least outside of microorganisms. As well, the star it orbits is a red dwarf, meaning it is extremely small - about 14% the size of our sun, and only 0.1% as bright. The brightest times on this planet would only be as light as twilight on Earth, as it receives only about 2% of the light that Earth does in the visible spectrum. Another huge issue is that this planet orbits around 25 times closer to its host star than we do to the sun. This suggests that it'd be "tidal locked," meaning only one side of the planet would ever face the star. Basically, only half the planet would likely be habitable if any of it is habitable at all.

This is really only the beginning of the issues that this planet could possibly have in terms of its inhabitability. It's a sweet discovery, and one that I am bound to follow in the near future. However, I can't be all that excited yet, as we are so unsure whether this planet truly has any chance at sustaining life. There are already talks of sending probes there, which sounds extremely preemptive. By the time they can do that though, they'll have figured out whether or not it'd be worth it. Plus, even if they do send probes, they wouldn't arrive for another 100 plus years. So I suppose it's nothing we need to worry about anyway.