🌍 Beyond doing everything possible to understand the Universe that surrounds us, for millennia, Man has never stopped questioning. How big is the Universe? Does it have a limit? Do we live on the only planet that can support life? And if life exists in the farthest reaches of the cosmos, what does it look like?
To answer this question, researchers are taking a close look at the stars closest to our solar system. Proxima Centauri, or Proxima Centauri, is particularly coveted, especially since in 2016 a rocky planet was discovered in the habitable zone of this star, which has a few special features.
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💥 HABITABLE EXOPLANET:
- But first, let's look at Alpha Centauri AB, a double star. Although at first glance it appears to be a single star, in reality this star is a binary system. The two stars orbit around a common center of mass with a period of 79.91 years. Due to an eccentric orbit, their mutual distance varies from 11.2 astronomical units (more than 11 times the distance from the Earth to the Sun), to 35.6 astronomical units. The brightest is Alpha Centauri A, or Rigil Kentaurus, which means "foot of the Centaur" in Arabic. It is also the fourth brightest star in our night sky, after Sirius, Canopus and Arcturus. This star, whose age is estimated to be around 4.6 billion years, could be the twin of our Sun both by size, mass, and age. Centauri A is thus similarly of spectral type G2V. This yellow dwarf takes about 22 days to complete its rotation, its speed is therefore about 2.7 km/s.
Its resemblance to our Sun has made it more than once the destination of many film fictions. The movie Avatar is the best example. In this fiction, Pandora is the exolune of a gas giant named Polyphemus which orbits around Alpha Centauri A. Humanoid beings, the Na' vi, evolve on this exolune in the best way alongside an atypical fauna and a dense and intelligent flora. It remains now to discover if a planet evolves in the habitable zone of this star. Astronomers based at the European Southern Observatory, in the Atacama Desert in Chile, have mentioned that they were surprised by the sighting of a bright spot near Alpha Centauri A. At the moment, if it is only a hypothesis, we can still talk about a candidate planet. This one would be a hot planet smaller than Neptune and could be located in the habitable zone. What to continue to make us dream ...
But let's continue our exploration and get closer to the last star of this triple system, Alpha Centauri C, more often named Proxima Centauri. Usually not visible to the naked eye, you can finally see it sparkle with a thousand lights. This star, just over four light years from Earth, is the closest star to our Sun. Its average luminosity is relatively low compared to its two neighbors that we have just explored. Indeed, Proxima Centauri is a red star, of spectral type M5.5Ve, which indicates a red main sequence.
Proxima Centauri has a planetary system. At least one planet is located in its so-called habitable zone, and I propose that we go there right away. Tell me! How do you imagine this planet with three suns? Do you think that it can already host any form of life? Let's try to find out more about this planet, which could be the first planet other than Earth on which life could be possible. Let's head for Proxima Centauri b, the closest exoplanet to our blue planet.
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🎬 On the program today:
- 00:00 - Introduction
- 01:55 - Our place in the universe
- 09:49 - Our solar system
- 25:17 - The Centaurus constellation
- 28:53 - Centaurus A Galaxy - NGC 5128
- 35:45 - Omega Centauri Globular Cluster - NGC 5139
- 39:49 - Boomerang Nebula
- 44:25 - Exoplanets around Alpha Centauri A?
- 47:58 - Exoplanets around Alpha Centauri B ?
- 46:29 - Exoplanets around Proxima Centauri?
- 53:55 - What does the alien world look like on the exoplanet Proxima Centauri b?
- 54:30 - What does the alien world on the exoplanet Proxima Centauri c look like?
- 55:15 - Discovery of a new exoplanet Proxima Centauri d
- 1:00:37 - A mysterious belt of dust ...
- 1:04:03 - How to go to Proxima Centauri?
- 1:10:57 - The strange behavior of Proxima Centauri
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