James Webb Just Saw Something Near Proxima That Shouldn't Exist

#JamesWebb #ProximaCentauri #AlphaCentauri This calm, slow journey explores what the James Webb Space Telescope saw near the nearest star system to the Sun. We travel through Proxima Centauri and its three planets, the bright Sun-like star Alpha Centauri A, and the faint infrared speck called S1, a candidate giant planet that appeared in one image and vanished in the next. Along the way we look at how planets are found, why a coronagraph creates an artificial eclipse, and why this speck sits right at the edge of what we can prove, honestly weighing whether it is a world, a distant galaxy, or a trick of the light. Sources: a. Beichman, Sanghi, and colleagues, "Worlds Next Door: A Candidate Giant Planet Imaged in the Habitable Zone of Alpha Centauri A," Papers I and II, twenty twenty-five. b. Wagner and colleagues, results of the NEAR (New Earths in the Alpha Centauri Region) mid-infrared search on the Very Large Telescope, twenty twenty-one. c. Reporting and summaries from the SETI Institute, the American Astronomical Society's AAS Nova, Scientific American, Universe Today, and the ESO discoveries of Proxima Centauri b, c, and d. #JamesWebb #ProximaCentauri #AlphaCentauri #Exoplanet #JWST #SpaceDocumentary #Astronomy #NearestStar #HabitableZone #Coronagraph