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Description
This vast feature, imaged above Proxima Centauri b's permanent dayside, further challenges the hypothesis that the giant spirals could be fossil remnants of ancient life-forms. It is hard, after all, to picture anything alive growing to such sizes. Moreover, the dayside of the planet is forbiddingly hot and should not be survivable. Some have launched a theory that it could be an imprint left by a billions-years-old weather phenomenon, something like a lava storm in the planet's formative period; however, once again that leaves the corresponding structures in the terminator unexplained.

A fossilized storm? Or something else entirely?

Other images in this series:

Description
This vast feature, imaged above Proxima Centauri b's permanent dayside, further challenges the hypothesis that the giant spirals could be fossil remnants of ancient life-forms. It is hard, after all, to picture anything alive growing to such sizes. Moreover, the dayside of the planet is forbiddingly hot and should not be survivable. Some have launched a theory that it could be an imprint left by a billions-years-old weather phenomenon, something like a lava storm in the planet's formative period; however, once again that leaves the corresponding structures in the terminator unexplained.

A fossilized storm? Or something else entirely?

Other images in this series: