Exoplanet Globe - 6-inch

Explore Proxima Centauri b, a terrestrial planet circling the nearest star to the Sun, Proxima Centauri, with this exclusive 6-inch desktop globe.

Weighing in at nearly 1.3 Earth masses and likely a bit larger than our home planet, Proxima b is categorized as a super-Earth planet.  At only about 5 perfect the distance of Earth from the Sun, Proxima b lies within its star's habitable zone and could have lakes or oceans of water.

Proxima b was discovered using the radial velocity method, which finds planets by closely monitoring the host star for small movements.  As a planet orbits its star, its gravity subtly tugs on the star.  A campaign undertaken in the first half of 2016 focused on Proxima Centauri, looking with numerous telescopes, including the European Southern Observatory's 3.6-meter telescope in Chile, for those small shifts.  That year, researchers announced they'd measured Proxima Centauri moving toward and away from Earth with a speed of about 3mph in a cycle that repeats every 11.2 days.  This is due to the tugging of Proxima b as it orbits its star with the same period, meaning a year on Proxima b lasts just over 11 days.

Researchers can use global climate models based on information we know about Proxima b, combined with the range of possible sizes, and rotation rates it may have to determine what the planet might look like.  Studies find that, if Proxima b does have liquid water, it likely exists either only on the star-facing side or in an equatorial belt.  If it exists in an equatorial belt, water at higher latitudes and the poles might take the form of ice, while liquid reigns at the mid-latitudes.

Our globe shows just one possible illustration of the second case (with an equatorial belt) where its poles are icy, while hypothetical continents - and equally hypothetical greenery - peek through.