When the first explorers crossed the Atlantic Ocean from Europe, most believed that the Earth was flat. And those traveling west believed that if they went too far, they would fall from the earth into the void.

But today, we have not only clearly explored all parts of the Earth, we have visited all the planets in the solar system. Next on this stepping stone – exploring the worlds beyond the solar block.

In 1992, we first discovered a planet orbiting another galaxy. Since then, we have discovered more than 3,300 other interstellar planets to date. These worlds are stranger than the worlds of science fiction like Star Wars and Guardians of the Galaxy.

Some of these are 9000 times larger than Earth, some are slightly larger than our Moon! Some are hot enough to melt iron, some are colder than Pluto.

We have observed massive galaxies, dead galaxies, and sometimes even planets crawling around alone in the galaxy without a galaxy at all.

Although there is such a wide variety of planets, the ones that excite us the most are planets similar to our Earth. The reason is that they can harbor life: these rocky planets have temperatures suitable for liquid water on their surfaces.

One such planet has now been discovered, and it orbits the closest galaxy to our solar system!

Proxima Centauri is just 4.2 light-years away from Earth. So the rocky planet orbiting it is the closest exoplanet to us.

Proxima Centauri has been observed for a long time by several telescopes in the galaxy through the Pale Red Dot Observatory.

A small tremor was first observed in Proxima Centauri in 2013, based on data collected. Although the cause was suspected to be the gravitational pull of a planet orbiting Proxima Centauri, there was not enough data to make a definitive conclusion, so the search began.

Based on the new search data, Proxima Centauri has been observed to sometimes appear to be approaching Earth at a speed of 5 km/h and at other times to be moving away from Earth at a speed of 5 km/h. This type of change occurs continuously every 11.2 days.

Observing this, the scientists observed a small Doppler shift. They concluded that the cause must be a planet – a planet 1.3 times the size of Earth orbiting Proxima Centauri at a distance of just 7 million km, causing the Doppler effect. Thank you.