Hidden planet might be orbiting the nearest star to our sun, scientists say – the independent, independent
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The star closest to the Sun might have a second, hiddenplanet, scientists say.
Proxima Centauri, the solar system that is our nearest neighbor, is already known to be home to one planet.
But scientists say they have seen clues that there is another planet there, which remains mostly undiscovered.
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The candidate planet orbits around the star every 5.2 years and is thought to be a “super-Earth”. Its mass would be higher than our own planet, but not as large as the ice giants Uranus and Neptune that inhabit our own solar system.
If the possible planet is confirmed, it could show us how lower mass planets are formed around small stars, the scientists write in a new paper published in the journal Science Advances.
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