A neighboring planetary system?

They discover around the star closest to the Sun a belt of material that suggests that there is more than one planet
Extreme science to look for other planets
The exoplanet Next b is not alone. This world located outside the Solar System, only four light-years from Earth, could be part of a much larger planetary system that revolves around Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the Sun. It could even be similar to ours. This is what researchers believe that they have been observing that region of the sky since last year this planet was discovered, with a size similar to that of the Earth and possibly a temperate climate, since it is at a distance from its star that in theory it would allow to hold liquid water. The researchers, led by Spaniard Guillem Anglada Pons, have discovered around this star a dust belt composed of material left over from the planetary formation. It is mainly ice and rock particles with a variety of sizes: from microscopic grains of dust to rocks comparable to asteroids several kilometers in diameter. "We have discovered that Proxima Centauri has around a cloud of dust distributed possibly in the form of a Belt that would be at a distance from its star of between one and four Astronomical Units (one AU is the distance between the Earth and the Sun) ", tells EL MUNDO Guillem Anglada Pons, researcher at the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia (IAA -CSIC).
Proxima Centauri is the closest star to the Solar System and is orbited by the planet Proxima b.
"This would be an analogue of the solar Kuiper belt, but much smaller, because Próxima is also a much smaller star than the Sun," explains the scientist. "That this belt exists in Next indicates that there has to be something more than an isolated planet, and that a complex planetary system has probably formed around this star." In fact, our data suggests that there may be other structures, such as a belt. times greater, which would imply a much greater complexity ", advances Anglada. Temperatures of -230 degrees The researchers have also been able to calculate that the belt around the star Proxima Centauri, a red dwarf star located in the Centaur Constellation, has an approximate temperature of -230 degrees centigrade. Its results, published in the Astrophysical journal Journal Letters, are based on observations made with ALMA, the largest radio telescope in the world. Operated by the European Southern Observatory (ESO), it is a set of 66 giant antennae located on an esplanade in the Chilean Atacama desert at an altitude of 5,000 meters. Interestingly, the discovery of Proxima b, announced during the summer of 2016, was led on the other Guillem Anglada, in this case Guillem Anglada-Escudé. From the announcement, the team of Guillem Anglada Pons undertook "a study with the idea of ​​characterizing this possible
La ubicación de la estrella más cercana al Sistema Solar, Proxima Centauri, está marcada con un círculo rojo.
sistema exoplanetario". Según recuerda el astrofísico, "una de las iniciativas fue buscar con ALMA si había nubes de polvo orbitando alrededor de la estrella. Después de formarse un sistema planetario, quedan residuos de rocas, hielos, polvo, etc, que no han llegado a convertirse en planetas. En el caso del Sistema Solar este material residual forma el llamado cinturón de Kuiper, el cinturón de asteroides o la luz zodiacal.Desde su descubrimiento, el exoplaneta Próxima b se ha convertido en un objetivo prioritario en la investigación de mundos fuera del Sistema Solar. Y los resultados presentados este viernes son los primeros del proyecto exploratorio que están llevando a cabo: "Con observaciones adicionales podrá obtenerse una imagen del cinturón, lo que determinará la orientación del sistema planetario de Próxima", dice Anglada Pons. A partir de ahí, esperan poder calcular la masa real del planeta y averiguar cómo es ese entorno de rocas y polvo alrededor de la estrella.Por otro lado, y mirando hacia el futuro, sobre la mesa hay un ambicioso proyecto apadrinado por Stephen Hawking que pretende desarrollar minúsculas naves espaciales, del tamaño de un microchip para que exploren el sistema de Próxima Centauri. Las naves del denominado proyecto Starshot estarían impulsadas por un láser gigantesco. Aunque la tecnología necesaria para emprender esta misión aún no existe, los científicos que forman parte de este proyecto creen que podría hacerse realidad en unas décadas.