American astronomer Dimitri Atri listed the conditions that would ensure the existence of life on Proxima Centauri, the closest exoplanet to Earth. Research on this is published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society and is briefly reported on Phys.org.
The celestial body Proxima b can be habitable if it has a dense atmosphere or a strong magnetic field. These factors, Atri believes, would allow potential organisms living on the exoplanet's surface to withstand the intense radiation from the parent star Proxima Centauri.
Around it, the celestial body revolves at a distance of 0.05 astronomical units (7.5 million kilometers). A year on Proxima b lasts 11.2 days. The exoplanet is about 1.3 times heavier than Earth, and its average surface temperature is close to zero degrees Celsius - this is 10 degrees lower than that of Earth, and several tens of degrees higher than that of Mars.
Proxima Centauri is a red dwarf, one of the most active classes of stars in the universe. The x-ray flare generated by the luminary is about 400 times stronger than the most intense solar flare.