Astronomers Confirm The Earth-Sized Planet at Proxima Centauri Is Definitely There - ScienceAlert

But there's some bad news: Proxima Centauri tends to bombard any planets in its vicinity with a ferocious amount of X-rays - Proxima b receives about 400 times the amount as Earth receives from its Sun.

That leads to the question: "Is there an atmosphere that protects the planet from these deadly rays?" asked co-author Christophe Lovis, a researcher who worked on ESPRESSO, in the statement.

Lovis hopes that the next generation of spectrographs - ESPRESSO's successor, "RISTRETTO," is already in the works - could help us find the answer.