A glimpse of a planet in its star’s habitable zone — the ‘just right’ region where life could flourish — has astronomers reeling. The smudgy-looking gas planet is circling Alpha Centauri A, the brightest member of a triplet of stars strewn just 4 light years, or 1.4 parsecs, from Earth. And it could be orbiting at a record-breaking proximity to its host star, at least for a planet captured through direct imaging.
Researchers report their findings in two papers due to appear in The Astrophysical Journal Letters1,2.
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