Call it exoplanet fatigue. The historic detection of an exoplanet just 4.2 light-years from Earth, featured on our cover, was big news. It attracted a lot of media buzz. But outside the office, I heard little about it. No questions from other parents at the playground, including those who had been eager to chat about gravitational waves and the Zika virus. Even my significant other, a science fiction fan, didn’t probe for any details or wonder aloud about the chances for alien life on Proxima b.
I was a bit surprised. Because, as astronomy reporter Christopher Crockett writes in "Signs of planet detected around sun’s nearest neighbor star" (SN: 6/17/16, p. 6), this nearby world might well be the one we’ve been searching for. Proxima b orbits its star within a zone where temperatures permit liquid water to exist on its surface. In terms of intriguing exoplanets that could possibly harbor life, this one seems to be in the sweet spot (SN: 4/30/16, p. 32). Proxima b may be just a tad bigger than Earth and it’s also just next door, astronomically speaking. It orbits Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the sun and a member of the triple-star Alpha Centauri system.
To read more, click here.