New Planet Discovered Orbiting Proxima Centauri, the Star Closest to Our Own Sun
A team of astronomers has discovered a new planet orbiting Proxima Centauri, the star closest to the Sun. The candidate planet, named Proxima d, is the third detected in the system and it is among the lightest of the exoplanets discovered so far. Proxima d is only a quarter of the mass of Earth and orbits extremely close to its parent star, at one-tenth of the distance between the Sun and the Solar System's innermost planet, Mercury. So, the alien world is just short of the distance Proxima Centauri is from our solar…