Astronomers have confirmed the existence of four small planets around Barnard’s Star, one of Earth’s nearest and perhaps most notorious neighboring stars.
The new discoveries verify a study last year that suggested Barnard’s Star was orbited by at least one planet; the worlds were discovered using the radial velocity method, which can detect otherwise hidden exoplanets via a subtle wobble that their orbital tugging causes in motions of their host stars. The frequency of that stellar wobble reveals an exoplanet’s orbital period and distance from its star, and its strength provides an estimate of the unseen world’s mass.
The observations indicate that each of the four planets around Barnard’s Star is much smaller than Earth—between 20 percent and 30 percent of its mass. That means they are probably rocky, like the inner planets of our solar system. But they all orbit so closely to Barnard’s Star that they would be too hot for life as we know it.
To read more, click here.