Efforts to send some type of man-made probe to the Alpha Centauri system may have gotten a huge boost Tuesday as the European Southern Observatory (ESO) confirmed the existence of a planet around Proxima Centauri that could potentially harbor (or support) life. The announcement confirms rumors of such a planet, hints of which were first found in 2013. Proxima Centauri is only 4.24 light years from earth, and the discovery of a planet — dubbed Proxima b — makes it the closest exoplanet (a planet outside our own solar system) ever discovered. The planet is about a third bigger than our own, but it has a much faster orbit at about 11 days due to being only 7 million miles from its host star. That's only a fifth of the distance between the Sun and Mercury. However, instead of ending up a barren wasteland like Mercury is, Proxima b is able to support life due to differences in Proxima Centauri's brightness. The star is a red dwarf, making it much smaller than our Sun, and it operates at a