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It’s not just the size of the star system that makes this discovery so dramatic, it’s also the amount of heat generated within it. The ESO states that until this discovery, no planets had ever been spotted around a star more than three times as big as the sun. The planet is orbiting b Centauri, a two-star system that has at least six times the mass of the sun, which makes it the biggest system in which a planet has been confirmed. “Finding a planet around b Centauri was very exciting since it completely changes the picture about massive stars as planet hosts,” said Stockholm University Astronomer Markus Janson in a statement. “Some astronomers believed planets could not exist around stars this massive and this hot - until now,” reads a statement from the ESO. The newly discovered planet is approximately 325 light-years away in the Centaurus constellation.
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So, astronomers already knew that Proxima b had absorbed a lot of punishment over the eons - but the new study suggests that the damage may be greater than scientists had thought. Red dwarfs are very active stars, firing off lots of powerful flares, especially when they're young. But Proxima b and its kin face another habitability challenge - stellar eruptions. It's possible that thick atmospheres distribute heat around tidally locked planets, making at least some parts of these worlds habitable, some astronomers have said. So, one side of Proxima b may be broiling-hot, while the other is cold and dark. Red-dwarf planets close enough to be in the habitable zone are likely tidally locked, meaning they always show the same face to their parent stars, astronomers say. Such proximity raises questions about the potential habitability of Proxima b and similar worlds. (Earth, by comparison, lies about 93 million miles, or 150 million km, from the sun.) For example, Proxima b orbits a mere 4.6 million miles (7.5 million kilometers) from Proxima Centauri and completes one lap every 11.2 Earth days. Red dwarfs are smaller and dimmer than the sun, so their habitable zones lie much closer-in than those of sun-like stars. That host star is Proxima Centauri, a red dwarf that lies just 4.2 light-years from the sun.