Next b, the potentially habitable extrasolar planet closest to Earth, may actually be a very unpleasant place. This rocky world, considered possible first goal of a future interstellar trip, received in March 2016 a good shake of its star, Proxima Centauri, that could have destroyed it. During the energetic explosion of radiation, the tiny red dwarf became 70 times brighter and the event could be contemplated from our planet.
Next b is a planet of land mass in the habitable zone of Proxima Centauri. However, the high activity of its star, the closest to the Sun, casts more and more doubts about its habitability. Sufficiently powerful and frequent flares have the ability to destroy the exoplanet's ozone layer, allowing lethal levels of radiation to reach its surface.
In March 2016, a network of telescopes called Evryscope observed a super-flame ten times larger than any previously detected in that star. The event could be visible without any instrument in dark places and easily with binoculars if one looked in the right direction. The brightness of the star increased 70 times.
Researchers believe that repeated eruptions can reduce ozone from a similar atmosphere to Earth by 90% in as little as five years. And it would eliminate it in a few hundred thousand years. The ultraviolet light of the stellar bombs hit the surface with a hundred times the intensity needed to kill even the most resistant microbial life. A catastrophe.
An inhospitable world
This means that Próxima b could be a much more inhospitable world than previously thought. "Recent results have suggested that some more complex lives such as lichens that evolved in extreme environments with adaptations such as UV detection pigments can survive these levels of radiation," astronomers, some of them Spaniards, explain in a prepress document. . "This suggests that life in Proxima b will have to undergo complex adaptations to survive, even if the planetary atmosphere survives the long-term impact of stellar activity," they add.
It is not the first time that researchers detect a great super-call in Proxima Centauri. Another massive stellar eruption in 2017 was able to wipe out the exoplanet. At maximum brightness, the flare was 10 times brighter than the larger ones sent by our Sun when observed at similar wavelengths.
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