Perhaps no other star system has elicited so much wonder, mystery and frustration as Barnard’s Star.
Astronomers announced last Wednesday they’d discovered a planet in its thrall weighing in at around three Earth-masses, with a frigid, 233-day orbit. The find finally answers whether we have any planetary neighbors in the second-closest system to Earth (after Alpha Centauri).
This follows more than 50 years of scrutinizing the star, and coming up empty. A 1999 study ruled out any gas giants at Barnard’s Star. A 2003 study ruled out close-in Neptune-like worlds. A 2013 study found nothing larger than Neptune anywhere close to the star — and, like the recent study, it ruled out anything in the habitable zone (the possible orbits that allow for liquid water — and, therefore, life as we know it).
