Proxima Centauri b Climate Model Scenarios

  • Released Thursday, January 23, 2020
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Proxima b as a water planet with no land and no ocean circulation. Notice the large ocean on Proxima b's starside.

Proxima Centauri b is the closest exoplanet to Earth. It is only four light years away. NASA scientists studying this exoplanet have applied Earth system science models to generate several different scenarios of what Proxima Centauri b may actually be like. Here are four of those scenarios.

Promixa b as a water planet with ocean circulation, but no land. Notice the oddly shaped exposed ocean all around the planet.

If the Earth were in Proxima b's location and the same distance from Proxima b's star and the Pacific Ocean was starside, things might look something like this.

If the Earth were in Proxima b's location and had its star and was also tidally locked with Africa on the starside, things might look something like this.

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NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio

This page was originally published on Thursday, January 23, 2020.
This page was last updated on Wednesday, November 15, 2023 at 12:14 AM EST.

Papers used in this visualization

https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017arXiv170902051D/abstract

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