The TV documentary Alien Worlds hypothesized that a life-sustaining planet could exist in orbit around Proxima Centauri or other red dwarf stars. Such a planet would lie within the habitable zone of Proxima Centauri, about 0.023–0.054 AU from the star, and would have an orbital period of 3.6–14 days. A planet orbiting within this zone will experience tidal locking to the star, so that Proxima Centauri moves little in the planet's sky, and most of the surface experiences either day or night perpetually. However, the presence of an atmosphere could serve to redistribute the energy from the star-lit side to the far side of the planet.

Proxima Centauri's flare outbursts could erode the atmosphere of any planet in its habitable zone, but the documentary's scientists thought that this obstacle could be overcome (see continued theories). Gibor Basri of the University of California, Berkeley, even mentioned that "no one [has] found any showstoppers to habitability." For example, one concern was that the torrents of charged particles from the star's flares could strip the atmosphere off any nearby planet. However, if the planet had a strong magnetic field, the field would deflect the particles from the atmosphere; even the slow rotation of a tidally locked dwarf planet that spins once for every time it orbits its star would be enough to generate a magnetic field, as long as part of the planet's interior remained molten.

Other scientists, especially proponents of the Rare Earth hypothesis, disagree that red dwarf stars can sustain life. The tide-locked rotation may result in a relatively weak planetary magnetic moment, leading to strong atmospheric erosion by coronal mass ejections from Proxima Centauri.

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[link to en.wikipedia.org]