Proxima Centauri b: Planet is in the habitable zone..

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Proxima Centauri is a small, cool red-dwarf star located just 4.2 light-years from the sun. Despite its proximity, scientists still know very little about Proxima Centauri's planetary companion, besides that its mass is at least 1.3 times that of Earth and that it goes around its parent star every 11 days. Therefore, Del Genio and his colleagues had to make some reasonable guesses about the exoplanet Proxima Centauri b — namely, that it had an atmosphere and an ocean on its surface — for their work to proceed.

Proxima Centauri b orbits in its star's habitable zone, meaning it's at just the right distance to receive enough starlight to keep its surface above the freezing temperature of water. But this zone is extremely close to the star, Space.com, a Live Science sister site, reported. So it's likely that the planet has become tidally locked due to gravitational forces. This means that the same side of Proxima Centauri b always faces its parent star, much like how the moon always shows the same side to Earth.

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