ALMA Discovers Cold Dust Around Nearest Star
ALMA has been looking at the Sun's closest star, Proxima Centauri. It has found something very interesting.
Proxima Centauri is a red dwarf star lying 4.25 light years from Earth.
In 2016, ESO announced the discovery of an exoplanet orbiting Proxima Centauri, named Proxima Centauri b.
ALMA has now spotted a glowing cloud of cold dust around the star,
1-4 times further away from the star than the Earth is from the Sun.
There may also be another, even cooler, dust belt much away from the star.
These belts are expected to be made up of rocks and ice that failed to form planets.
Like the asteroid belt and the Kuiper Belt in the Solar System.
These are the first signs of an elaborate planetary system, not just a single planet, around the star closest to our Sun.
Transcribed by ESO, translated by —