Pale Red Dot was an international search for an Earth-like exoplanet around the closest star to us , Proxima Centauri . It used HARPS , attached to ESO ’ s 3.6-metre telescope at La Silla Observatory , as well as other telescopes around the world . Credit : ESO / Pale Red Dot
Nearest star has planet in habitable zone
Earth-mass world spotted in orbit around Proxima Centauri
Astronomers using ESO telescopes and other facilities have found clear evidence of a planet orbiting the closest star to Earth , Proxima Centauri . The long-sought world , designated Proxima b , orbits its cool red parent star every 11 days and has a temperature suitable for liquid water to exist on its surface .
This rocky world is a little more massive than the Earth and is the closest exoplanet to us — and it may also be the closest possible abode for life outside the Solar System .
Just over four light-years from the Solar System lies a red dwarf star that has been named Proxima Centauri as it is the closest star to Earth apart from the Sun . This cool star in the constellation of Centaurus is too faint to be seen with the unaided eye and lies near to the much brighter pair of stars known as Alpha Centauri AB .
During the first half of 2016 Proxima Centauri was regularly observed with the HARPS spectrograph on the ESO 3.6-metre telescope at La Silla in Chile and simultaneously monitored by other telescopes around the world . This was the Pale Red Dot campaign , in which a team of astronomers led by Guillem Anglada- Escudé , from Queen Mary University of London , was looking for the tiny back and forth wobble of the star that would be caused by the gravitational pull of a possible orbiting planet .
As this was a topic with very wide public interest , the progress of the campaign between mid-January and April 2016 was shared publicly as it happened on the Pale Red Dot website and via social media . The reports were accompanied by numerous outreach articles written by specialists around the world .
Guillem Anglada-Escudé explains the background to this unique search : “ The first hints of a possible planet were spotted back in 2013 , but the detection was not convincing . Since then we have worked hard to get further observations off the ground with help from ESO and others . The recent Pale Red Dot campaign has been about two years in the planning .”
The Pale Red Dot data , when combined with earlier observations made at ESO observatories and elsewhere , revealed the clear signal of a truly exciting result . At times Proxima Centauri is approaching Earth at about 5 kilometres per hour — normal human walking pace — and at
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