Astronomers in Chile have recently found evidence for what could be a new planet orbiting the nearest star to the sun, Proxima Centauri.
It was observed with the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile, as researchers noticed movement in Promixa Centauri's motion caused by a gravitational pull.
The planet is said to be only a quarter of the Earth's mass. It also orbits very close to its parent star at just one tenth of the distance between the sun and Mercury.
Observations from the VLT show that this new planet completes a full orbit of the star every five days.
Scientists have named the planet Proxima d, as it's the third planet to be found around Proxima Centauri. Promixa b has a mass similar to that of Earth and completes an orbit every 11 days, while Promixa c is believed to complete an orbit around the star every five years.
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João Faria, a researcher at the Institute of Astrophysics and Space Sciences in Portugal and lead author on the study, said that the planet is "packed with interesting new worlds."
"This is a very low mass planet, and is the third candidate around the star closest to us,” Faria said. “It shows that these planets, similar to the Earth, may be common in our galaxy, and just close by. And it makes us wonder about the possible conditions for habitability in these planet systems and if it’s possible for life to appear in other places in the universe."
It's believed to orbit about 2.4m miles (4m km) from Proxima Centauri. Therefore, it's closer to the star than "its habitable zone where the temperature range is just right for water to run freely."
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Scientists first noticed the possibility of the planet in 2020 when they were were observing Proxima Centauri to confirm the existence of Proxima b. The star's motion had a weak signal was caused them to believe a planet was orbiting every five days.
They then conducted further research with an instrument on ESO’s telescope called Espresso to confirm that a planet was the cause and not a change in Promixa Centuari.
