In August this year, astronomers declared the discovery of a "second Earth" orbiting the Proxima Centauri star, located four light years away. The Earth sized exoplanet called Proxima b, made, and is in fact still making, a lot of noise among the community of scientists and space watchers who believe it to have a temperature suitable for the existence of liquid water, and hence be suitable for hosting alien life. Now, researchers from Harvard have found that not only are there chances of Proxima b being similar to Earth, but its star the Proxima Centauri is also quite like our star, the Sun.
The researching team has reportedly found that the Proxima Centauri - a cool, small, red dwarf star that has only one-tenth the mass of the Sun and one-thousandth as luminous - has a regular cycle of starspots, also known as sunspots. Starspots are basically like blotches on the surface of the star that occur where the temperature is lower than the surrounding area. Starspots are driven by magnetic fields which can obstruct the surface plasma and create spots. The number and distribution of such spots are affected by the frequency of changes in the magnetic field.
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