Some astronomers believed planets could not exist around stars this massive and this hot - until now. This is the hottest and most massive planet-hosting star system found to date, and the planet was spotted orbiting it at 100 times the distance Jupiter orbits the Sun.
Projects like Breakthrough Starshot could even get robotic probes there within a human lifetime.The European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT) has captured an image of a planet orbiting b Centauri, a two-star system that can be seen with the naked eye. If a habitable planet is found, it will be the most promising candidate for life near us. Project Blue would be the first-ever intensive effort on the stars, focused only on the system hoping to capture a distant "blue dot" that would have just enough resolution to suggest whether or not there's water there. The goal is to send an orbiting telescope to space carrying an object called a coronagraph-which blots out a star's light and makes it easier to find planets. Project Blue is seeking $175,000 on IndieGoGo. A tentative detection in 2012 was quickly refuted. So far, however, most searches of this system have come up dry.
The two main stars in Alpha Centauri are calmer than Proxima Centauri, and if there were a planet around one of them in the habitable zone, it would make a much more ideal candidate. That's why some scientists are keen to look for a potentially Earth-like planet in the Alpha Centauri system. Proxima Centauri has violent flare activity, which could strip away planetary atmospheres. Also, one hemisphere of the planet would face the star at all times, with the other in perpetual darkness. But the star's small size makes it less than ideal for life.
The world stood up and took notice last year at the announcement that the latter star has a planet around it called Proxima-b.
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