QMUL academic makes TIME's 100 Most Influential People list

Dr Guillem Anglada-Escudé won the award for his rsearch into exoplanets that could be home to life

Dr Guillem Anglada-Escudé from QMUL’s School of Physics and Astronomy was featured on the list’s “pioneers” section, for leading a study that discovered an Earth-size planet orbiting Proxima Centauri, our closest neighbouring star.

The list, now in its fourteenth year, recognises the world’s most influential individuals.

TIME’s editor-in-chief Nancy Gibbs said: “Each year our TIME 100 list lets us step back and measure the forces that move us…. One way or another they each embody a breakthrough: they broke the rules, broke the record, broke the silence, broke the boundaries to reveal what we're capable of.”

Dr Anglada-Escudé was featured along with scientists Michaël Gillon of Belgium’s University of Liège and Natalie Batalha, the current lead scientist for NASA’s Kepler space telescope, for their research into exoplanets - planets orbiting other stars- that could be home to life.

Dr Anglada-Escudé will be talking about his planet-hunting experiences at this year's Garriott Lecture, which is free to attend, at Queen Mary University of London on Wednesday 24 May.   

Pale Red Dot

The discovery, in the journal Nature in August 2016, was the culmination of an inspiring astronomy outreach project called Pale Red Dot. 

Pale Red Dot involved a team of 30 scientists from eight countries. Running for four months, the campaign delivered in partnership with the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO) education and Public Outreach Department, and featured blog posts from leading exoplanet experts and social media updates via Facebook and Twitter.

It used the search for the nearest possible Earth-like planet as a hook to give the public the opportunity to see how science is done in modern observatories, and how teams of different astronomers work together to collect, analyse and interpret data.

Closest planet outside our Solar System

Using facilities operated by ESO and other telescopes, the research reveals a world with a similar mass to Earth orbiting around Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the Solar System.

The planet, called Proxima b, orbits its parent star every 11 days and has a temperature suitable for liquid water to exist on its surface. This rocky world is a little more massive than the Earth, and is the closest planet outside our Solar System.

Planet-hunters use the Doppler Effect, the shift in the star’s light spectrum depending on its velocity, to investigate the properties of exoplanets, such as their masses and periods of orbit.

Careful analysis of the resulting tiny Doppler shifts in this case indicated the presence of a planet with a mass at least 1.3 times that of the Earth, orbiting about 7 million kilometres from Proxima Centauri.

Capturing the public’s imagination

The study received media coverage in all continents, and won a host of awards. The team won the Research Impact category at the Guardian University Awards 2017 for their discovery.

The UK’s Institute of Physics magazine, Physics World, named the discovery of Proxima b one of the top ten breakthroughs in physics in 2016. The research paper was also ranked 38 in a list of the world’s top-100 ‘most-discussed’ journal articles of 2016, known as the ‘Altmetric top 100’. The ranking was awarded to the paper based on the level of interest it has received from international mainstream media, social networks and blogs, Wikipedia, public policy documents, and comments on post-publication peer review forums.

The discovery launched Dr Anglada-Escudé into ' Nature’s 10', an annual list by the journal Nature that highlights researchers from around the globe who have made an impact across a number of scientific fields.

   
More information

• See the full list on time.com/time100
• Book a place at this year's Garriott Lecture entitled: Worlds of Twilight: Proxima B and Life Under a Red Sun and hear Dr Anglada-Escudé in conversation with science fiction author Stephen Baxter, on Wednesday 24 May.
• 'A terrestrial planet candidate in a temperate orbit around Proxima Centauri', by G. Anglada-Escudé et al. was published in the journal Nature on 25 August 2016
• Find out more about studying Astrophysics BSc and Astrophysics MSc at QMUL’s School of Physics and Astronomy