Researchers have found a planet orbiting a neighboring star that's similar to our sun. Alpha Centauri B is a staple of science fiction, because the star is so close to our own solar system. Now scientists say they have evidence that the star is orbited by at least one planet and where there's one, there's probably more.
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In recent years, scientists have found hundreds of planets orbiting distant stars. Now they've discovered a planet whizzing around a star that's one of our closest neighbors. It's a star known as Alpha Centauri B. And the planet is the nearest ever spotted outside our solar system, as NPR's Nell Greenfieldboyce reports.
NELL GREENFIELDBOYCE, BYLINE: If you are going to imagine interstellar travel, the star system called Alpha Centauri would be your first stop. Its three stars, Alpha Centauri A, B and C, are only around four light-years from our sun. That's far, far away, but it's still closer than everything else beyond our solar system. And that's why imaginary planets in Alpha Centauri are a staple of science fiction.
Now, in the journal Nature, scientists say they've detected the first real planet there. A team of European astronomers used a telescope in Chile to closely observe Alpha Centauri B. They saw it make a tell-tale wobble, that meant a planet's gravity was tugging on the star. Greg Laughlin is an astrophysicist at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He says Alpha Centauri is so well-known, it's practically a household name.
DR. GREGORY LAUGHLIN: And to find out that the planet formation did occur there, it's just extraordinarily exciting.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: The newly detected planet has a mass that's similar to Earth, but it zips around its star once every three days. It's so close to its star that its surface might be made of super hot molten rock, more than 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit. It doesn't seem like a great place to live, but Laughlin says systems with a planet like this one often have more planets orbiting farther away from the star.
LAUGHLIN: I think that the prospects are excellent for finding further planets in this system.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: Perhaps even one in the so-called habitable zone, at a distance from the star where conditions might be right for liquid water and maybe even life.
DR. MARC KUCHNER: I would not be surprised if there were a whole system of planets around Alpha Cen.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: Marc Kuchner is an astrophysicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. He's most excited about the idea of sending a probe to visit planets found in Alpha Centauri.
KUCHNER: Inside every astronomer is a space cadet and this is the place to go. This is the destination that everyone talks about in the interstellar travel discussions.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: Even though with today's technology, going to this nearby neighbor would take thousands of years. Nell Greenfieldboyce, NPR News.
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