α Centauri A is the closest solar-type star to the Sun and offers the best opportunity to find and ultimately to characterize an Earth-sized planet located in its Habitable Zone […]
Alpha Centauri
Posted inAlpha Centauri
Imaging Low-mass Planets Within The Habitable Zone Of α Centauri
Giant exoplanets on wide orbits have been directly imaged around young stars. If the thermal background in the mid-infrared can be mitigated, then exoplanets with lower masses can also be […]
Posted inAlpha Centauri
Breakthrough Watch Enables Nearby Habitable-zone Exoplanets to be Directly Imaged
Breakthrough Watch, the global astronomical program looking for Earth-like planets around nearby stars, today announced a new observing technique with unprecedented sensitivity to directly image exoplanets. Their initial observations also […]
Posted inAlpha Centauri, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Brown Dwarfs, Epsilon Eridani, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Habitable Zones, Press Release, Proxima Centauri, tau Ceti, TRAPPIST-1
Goldilocks Stars Are Best Places to Look for Life
In the search for life beyond Earth, astronomers look for planets in a star’s “habitable zone” — sometimes nicknamed the “Goldilocks zone” — where temperatures are just right for liquid […]
Posted inAlpha Centauri, Press Release
Searching for Planets Orbiting Alpha Centauri A with the James Webb Space Telescope
Alpha Centauri A is the closest solar-type star to the Sun and offers an excellent opportunity to detect the thermal emission of a mature planet heated by its host star. […]
Posted inAlpha Centauri
Breakthrough Watch and European Southern Observatory Achieve First Light on Upgraded Planet-finding Instrument
Breakthrough Watch, the global astronomical program looking for Earth-like planets around nearby stars, and the European Southern Observatory (ESO), Europe’s foremost intergovernmental astronomical organization, today announced “first light” on a […]
Posted inAlpha Centauri, Press Release
Alpha Centauri Revisited: 2nd Epoch ALMA Observations
The observational study of stars in the sub-millimetre regime has only rather recently begun and was made possible mainly by the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). The emission mechanisms of […]
Posted inAlpha Centauri, Press Release
Activity And Telluric Contamination In HARPS Observations Of Alpha Centauri B
The Alpha Centauri system is the primary target for planet search as it is the closest star system composed of a solar twin Alpha Centauri A, a K-dwarf Alpha Centauri […]
Posted inAlpha Centauri, Press Release
Looking For Hazards In The Alpha Centauri Star System
In humanity’s search for life outside our Solar System, one of the best places scientists have considered is Alpha Centauri, a system containing the three nearest stars beyond our Sun. […]
Posted inAlpha Centauri, Press Release
The Chemical Composition of Alpha Centauri AB Revisited
The two solar-like stars α Cen A and B have long served as cornerstones for stellar physics in virtue of their immediate proximity, association in a visual binary, and masses […]