Laser sail propulsion is an idea that won't go away. By aiming powerful Earth-based lasers at tiny spacecraft with light sails, tiny spacecraft can be accelerated to near-relativistic speeds without ...

An artist's impression of a flare from Proxima Centauri, modeled after the loops of glowing hot gas seen in the largest solar flares. Exoplanet Proxima b is shown in the foreground. Proxima b orbits ...

The rocky planet circling the closest star to the sun got hammered by a superpowerful flare last year, a new study reports. That's a bit of bad news for anyone hoping that the alien world, known as ...

Proxima b is very promising. It orbits a red dwarf star called Proxima Centauri in a system with three stars in it. Proxima Centauri is small. It only has between 7.5% and 50% of our Sun’s mass.

News that a NASA scientist has announced fresh progress on Proxima b has pushed our nearest known exoplanet neighbor back into the spotlight, sharpening long-running questions about whether this rocky ...

Scientists have confirmed the existence of the exoplanet Proxima b, a planet just 4.2 light-years from Earth. Given how close it is to its star, Proxima Centauri, it could have liquid water, and ...

Call it exoplanet fatigue. The historic detection of an exoplanet just 4.2 light-years from Earth, featured on our cover, was big news. It attracted a lot of media buzz. But outside the office, I ...

This artist’s impression shows the planet Proxima b orbiting the red dwarf star Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the Solar System. ESO/M. Kornmesser Our nearest exoplanet discovered so far is ...