The Closest Exoplanet to Earth Could Be 'Highly Habitable'

[Dryson]

Just a cosmic hop, skip and jump away, an Earth-size planet orbits the closest star to our sun, Proxima Centauri.

Ever since the discovery of the exoplanet — known as Proxima Centauri b— in 2016, people have wondered whether it could be capable of sustaining life.

Now, using computer models similar to those used to study climate change on Earth, researchers have found that, under a wide range of conditions, Proxima Centauri b can sustain enormous areas of liquid water on its surface, potentially raising its prospects for harboring living organisms.

https://www.space.com/41806-proxima-b-nearest-exoplanet-habitable.html


Trees aren't necessarily needed to create oxygen on a planet. There are numerous microbes that convert methane to oxygen such as M. oxyfera for example.

Another microbe is Cyanobacteria that are photosynthetic. They convert sunlight into energy and produce oxygen as a waste product. Cyanobacteria live in the water, and can manufacture their own food through "photosynthesis."

Other microbes eat iron in a reverse process to produce energy.

https://phys.org/news/2016-04-microbes-iron-oxygen.html

Bacteria also breaks down other bacteria. The process of decomposition releases chemicals (such as carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus) that can be used to build new plants and animals.

So all a planet needs is water for Cynobacteria to exist that are then able to create an oxygenated environment along with other microbes feeding on them to create the elements that humans or human like life need to exist.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

That article you quote is factually incorrect in many ways. The writer should be sacked.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

My knowledge about proxima b comes entirely from a Science Channel special, but according to that, proxima b is tidally locked and there’s only one ‘iris’ ring that could possibly be habitable. The ring that gets very indirect sunlight between the desert and ice halves.

 

[XCV330]

My knowledge about proxima b comes entirely from a Science Channel special, but according to that, proxima b is tidally locked and there’s only one ‘iris’ ring that could possibly be habitable. The ring that gets very indirect sunlight between the desert and ice halves.

Could be tidally locked, but night not be. Could be a rogue planet captured from another system with its own spin, or something along those lines, as it may not have formed in its current orbit. Either way, it most likely doesn't have an atmosphere. Not really a paradise compared to home, but maybe it won't be an absolute hellworld like Venus.

 

[Ronald Held]

Probably atmosphere stripped away.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

I love it how in those Science Channel specials, if there's a 1 in 10^100 chance that a place might have life, they spend half the episode talking about it.

 

[Doom Shepherd]

Popping in to note that if a tidally-locked object's orbit is not perfectly circular (as most orbits are not), then there's going to be at least some libration - movement of the terminator back and forth over time (visible in time-lapse movies of our own Moon) - which could create a larger habitable area.