Earth's Suprise Neighbor
Hints at Exoplanet Abundance
AROUND THE TIME Earth formed, a slightly larger world coalesced by a much different star. Our sun was a steady,bright-yellow dot in its neighbor's night sky,but the two stars-and likely their planets-evoled along much different paths. The other star was a red dwarf, dim and cool and prone to violent outbursts. It rained harsh radition onto its world's surface, and lit it with the soft orange hue of a perpetual sunset .
That ruddy star was Proxima Centauri, our sun's nearest stellar neighbor, just 4.2 light-years away. The star's violent emissions long obscured the planet orbiting it. Thanks to a monthslong observing campaign, however, astronomers, deduced and finally confirmed the planet's existence in August. Dubbed Proxiam b,it sits smack in the middle of its star's habitable zone, where liquid surface water-and thus possibly life-could exist.
Incredibly, the planet's ghostly signal was hidden in plain sight for decades. In 2014, the international collaboration of Pale Red Dot-named in homage to Carl Sagan,who described Earth as a Pale Blue Dot-banded together after astronomets noticed the periodic signal of a possible planet coming from the star every 11.2 days.
For months last year,the team kept a near-constant vigil on Proxima Centauri, looking for tiny wobbles caused by the pull of an orbiting planet. An analysis of this new data, as well as a simultaneous analysis of decades-old observations led to the planet's cofirmation, published in Nature.
"You take the old data and the new data, and then the significance of the detection goes sky high-very, very significant," says Queen Mary University of London astronomer Guillem Anglada-Escude, who led the discovery team. The team had to be careful because these small violent suns have fooled astronomers before. Red dwarfs, by far the most .abudant type of star in the galaxy,can create planet-like signals during their powerful flares.
Main idea :
1. Paragrph one :
AROUND THE TIME Earth formed, a slightly larger world coalesced by a much different star.
2.Paragrph two :
That ruddy star was Proxima Centauri, our sun's nearest stellar neighbor, just 4.2 light-years away.
3.Paragrph three :
In 2014, the international collaboration of Pale Red Dot-named in homage to Carl Sagan,who described Earth as a Pale Blue Dot-banded together after astronomets noticed the periodic signal of a possible planet coming from the star every 11.2 days.
4.Paragrph four :
For months last year,the team kept a near-constant vigil on Proxima Centauri, looking for tiny wobbles caused by the pull of an orbiting planet .
5.Paragrph five :
Red dwarfs, by far the most .abudant type of star in the galaxy,can create planet-like signals during their powerful flares.
Subject , verbs , and object
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SUBJECT
|
VERBS
|
OBJECT
|
|
Around the time earth
|
formed
|
A slightly
larger world coalesced by a much different star.
|
|
Our sun
|
was
|
A steady,bright-yellow dot in its neighbor's
night sky,but the two stars-and likely their planets-evoled along much
different paths.
|
|
The other star
|
was
|
a red dwarf, dim and cool and prone to violent outbursts
|
|
It
|
rained
|
harsh
radition onto its world's surface, and lit it with the soft orange hue of a
perpetual sunset .
|
|
That ruddy star
|
was
|
Proxima Centauri, our sun's nearest stellar
neighbor, just 4.2 light-years away.
|
|
The star's violent emissions long
|
obscured
|
the planet orbiting it.
|
|
Thanks to a monthslong
|
observing
|
campaign, however, astronomers, deduced and finally confirmed
the planet's existence in August
|
|
It
|
sits
|
smack
in the middle of its star's habitable zone, where liquid surface water-and
thus possibly life-could exist.
|
|
planet's ghostly signal
|
was
|
hidden in plain sight for decades
|
|
The team
|
had
|
to be careful because these small violent suns have fooled
astronomers before
|
