Alien world Proxima B, aka Earth 2.0 located just 4.2 light years from Earth—discovered in August 2016—has perfect conditions to host alien life say experts.
According to reports, the mission set up to discover whether or not Proxima B has the necessary conditions to host life as we know it has taken a very interesting twist.
Dubbed as Earth 2.0, scientists have taken the first steps to finding out more about the climate of the world, in hopes of finding the necessary conditions that would allow life as we know it to flourish there.
According to new discoveries, the planet has a climate that would make the world habitable, reinforcing the notion that Proxima B could be home to alien life.
The alien world orbits our closest cosmic neighbor Proxima Centauri, located 4.3 light years from Earth, or if you prefer, 25 TRILLION miles away.
Experts have dubbed the planet as the second Earth due to the fact that it is eerily similar to Earth: it is of a similar size and is believed to have an Atmosphere just like Earth.
Early studies have shown that the planet is located within the habitable zone of the Proxima Centauri star.
In astronomy and astrobiology, the Circumstellar habitable zone (CHZ), or simply the habitable zone, is the range of orbits around a star within which a planetary surface can support liquid water given sufficient atmospheric pressure. The Goldilocks Zone refers to the habitable zone around a star where the temperature is just right – not too hot and not too cold – for liquid water to exist on a planet. … Looking for planets in the Goldilocks Zone is a way that allows scientists to hone in their search for Earth-like planets that could contain life.
Now, experts from the University of Exeter have undertaken another study in order to explore what type of climate the planet has.
“Our research team looked at a number of different scenarios for the planet’s likely orbital configuration using a set of simulations. As well as examining how the climate would behave if the planet was “tidally-locked” (where one day is the same length as one year), we also looked at how an orbit similar to Mercury, which rotates three times on its axis for every two orbits around the sun (a 3:2 resonance), would affect the environment,” said Dr. Ian Boutle, lead author of the study.
Using the Met Office’s Unified Model—which has been used by researchers for decades to study Earth’s climate—scientists have simulated the climate on Proxima B, if it contains a similar atmospheric composition to Earth.
Experts also looked at a much different atmosphere mainly composed with small amounts of carbon dioxide, as well as variations of the planets orbit.
Scientists found that not only has Proxima B the potential to be habitable, it could have a STABLE climate regime, which increases the odds of life having already flourished there.
Dr. James Manners, another author on the study, concluded: “One of the main features that distinguishes this planet from Earth is that the light from its star is mostly in the near infra-red. These frequencies of light interact much more strongly with water vapor and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere which affects the climate that emerges in our model.”
As noted by Phys.org, Using the Met Office software, the Unified Model, the team found that both the tidally-locked and 3:2 resonance configurations result in regions of the planet able to host liquid water. However, the 3:2 resonance example resulted in more substantial areas of the planet falling within this temperature range. Additionally, they found that the expectation of an eccentric orbit could lead to a further increase in the “habitability” of this world.
Dr. Nathan Mayne, an author of the study, added: “With the project we have at Exeter we are trying to not only understand the somewhat bewildering diversity of exoplanets being discovered but also exploit this to hopefully improve our understanding of how our own climate has and will evolve.”
Source: Exploring the climate of Proxima B with the Met Office Unified Model – ancient-code & ewao
0 Comments