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March 2017 - An Unexplained Water Leakage

Report #25 - February 2017

Proxima b = Water World? 

An artist's interpretation of Proxima b.

With all the buzz surrounding Proxima Centauri's planet, Proxima b, scientists have been trying to learn as much as they can about the possibly habitable planet. From Marseille University in France, Bastien Brugger and his colleagues, after running a series of simulations, were able to approximate the potential composition of the planet based on different radii. To start, the team predicted that the radius of Proxima b ranges from .94 and 1.4 times that of Earth (about 6,300 kilometers). If the planet's radius is on the low side of that estimation, then it is likely it is very dense, with its core making up a big 2/3 of the planet's mass while water only .05 percent of its mass, similar to Earth's with .02 percent. However, if the planet has a radius on the high side at 8930 km, then Proxima b would have a rocky center along with a single, 200 meter deep ocean covering its entire surface!

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