Free Astronomy Magazine May-June 2018

36 MAY-JUNE 2018 SPACE CHRONICLES Journal Letters, raises questions about the habitability of our solar system’s nearest exoplanetary neigh- bor, Proxima b, which orbits Proxima Centauri. At its peak, the newly recognized flare was 10 times brighter than our Sun’s largest flares, when observed at similar wavelengths. Stellar flares have not been well studied at the millimeter and submillimeter wave- lengths detected by ALMA, espe- cially around stars of Proxima Cen- tauri’s type, called M dwarfs, which Powerful flare from Proxima Centauri detected with ALMA by ALMA Observatory U sing data from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillime- ter Array (ALMA), a team of astronomers discovered that a pow- erful stellar flare erupted from Prox- ima Centauri last March. This find- ing, published in The Astrophysical T his artist’s impression shows what the sky might look like on Proxima Centauri b if the planet has a surface. The exoplanet orbits the red dwarf star Proxima Centauri, currently the closest star to the solar system at 4.2 light-years. The other two members of the Alpha Centauri triple, Alpha Centauri A and B, would appear in the sky, too. [ESO/M. Kornmesser]