Astronomers found strong evidence that a gassy Jupiter-size world is orbiting one of three stars in the stellar system closest to our own.

It would orbit within Alpha Centauri A’s habitable zone, the starlight-bathed region where liquid water can persist on a planet’s surface. Announced on August 7 and described in two preprint papers that have been accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal Letters,

Astronomers have used NASA's James Webb Space Telescope to find strong evidence for a planet orbiting a star in the triple system closest to our own sun. At just 4 light-years away from Earth, the Alpha Centauri star system has long been a compelling target in the search for worlds beyond our solar system called exoplanets.