* Astronomy

Title: Close stellar conjunctions of alpha Centauri A and B until 2050 - An mK = 7.8 star may enter the Einstein ring of alpha Cen A in 2028
Author: P. Kervella, F. Mignard, A. Mérand, F. Thévenin

The rapid proper motion of the alpha Cen pair (3.7 arcsec/yr) and its location close to the galactic plane on a rich stellar background combine to make them excellent candidates for stellar conjunctions with distant stars. Adding new astrometry to archival data, we have refined the orbital parameters, barycentric proper motion and parallax of alpha Cen and compute its apparent trajectory on sky over the coming decades. We present a catalogue of the expected close conjunctions until 2050. An exceptional event will take place in early May 2028, when alpha Cen A will come within 0.015 +/- 0.135 arcseconds of the mK = 7.8 star 2MASS 14392160-6049528 (hereafter S5). In terms of impact parameter and contrast, this is the most favorable stellar conjunction of alpha Cen within at least the next three decades. With an angular diameter of LD = 0.47 +/- 0.05 mas, it is likely that S5 is a red giant or supergiant located at several kiloparsecs. The approached stars will act as moving light probes in transmission through the environment of alpha Cen. The observation of these close conjunctions holds great promises to search for planets and other low mass objects in the alpha Cen system using photometry and astrometry. The relativistic deflection of the approached star images will be in the milliarcsecond range. The small impact parameter of the conjunction with S5 means that this star has a probability of 45% of entering the Einstein ring of alpha Cen A. The gravitational amplification of the flux of S5 could reach a factor five for the combination of the two lensed images. The proper motion, orbital parameters and parallax of alpha Cen will be measurable with an extreme accuracy from differential astrometry with the S stars. This will be valuable, for example to prepare the Breakthrough Starshot initiative to send interstellar nanocrafts to alpha Centauri.

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Title: Hubble Space Telescope search for the transit of the Earth-mass exoplanet Alpha Centauri Bb
Author: Brice-Olivier Demory (Cavendish Laboratory), David Ehrenreich, Didier Queloz, Sara Seager, Ronald Gilliland, William J. Chaplin, Charles Proffitt, Michael Gillon, Maximilian N. Guenther, Bjoern Benneke, Xavier Dumusque, Christophe Lovis, Francesco Pepe, Damien Segransan, Amaury Triaud, Stephane Udry

Results from exoplanet surveys indicate that small planets (super-Earth size and below) are abundant in our Galaxy. However, little is known about their interiors and atmospheres. There is therefore a need to find small planets transiting bright stars, which would enable a detailed characterisation of this population of objects. We present the results of a search for the transit of the Earth-mass exoplanet Alpha Centauri Bb with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). We observed Alpha Centauri B twice in 2013 and 2014 for a total of 40 hours. We achieve a precision of 115 ppm per 6-s exposure time in a highly-saturated regime, which is found to be consistent across HST orbits. We rule out the transiting nature of Alpha Centauri Bb with the orbital parameters published in the literature at 96.6% confidence. We find in our data a single transit-like event that could be associated to another Earth-size planet in the system, on a longer period orbit. Our program demonstrates the ability of HST to obtain consistent, high-precision photometry of saturated stars over 26 hours of continuous observations.

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Alpha Centauri culminates each year at midnight on 24 April

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New planet is nearest one to our Solar System

An astronomer involved in the discovery of the new exoplanet spoke to BBC Radio 5 live about its significance.
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