The discovery of 'Other Earth' may have water, life and right next to us

About 1.7 times the size of Earth, the planet Proxima b orbits the star Proxima, which has been identified as a "Earth-sized planet".

Discovered quite a long time thanks to the HARPS telescope of the Southern European Observatory, but until now, thanks to a more modern observation device than the ESPRESSO spectrometer , the new Proxima b was revealed to be a promising target. An appointment for the hunt for extraterrestrial life.

Graphic image depicting "copy of Earth" Proxima b - (photo: NASA).

According to Professor Francesco Pepe from the University of Geneva (Switzerland), the leader of the ESPRESSO research group, the new device makes much better measurements. Thanks to this, they were able to know the most important information: the planet is only 4.2 light-years away from us as its parent star is equal to the Earth's energy from the Sun!

It turns close to the parent star Proxima much, but Proxima is a red dwarf which is weaker than the Sun several times, whereby orbit accidentally just 11.2 days to help the planet fall into "the life of the star system" . Proxima b is also a rocky planet like Earth, with a mass of about 1.3 times that of our planet.

The new publication posted on ariXv.com said that the above factors have led scientists to believe that it is a "other Earth" that has long been sought by humans. It has excellent conditions for life and what scientists plan to do is determine whether life has developed on the surface. 

The only obstacle to life on Proxima b is that the radiation it receives from its parent star is up to 400 times that of Earth , which can seriously affect the evolution of life.