News Planetary Science

A giant planet may orbit our closest sunlike neighbor

The Webb telescope spotted the planet candidate near Alpha Centauri A

An illustration featuring a gas giant in the bottom right. In the upper left is Alpha Centauri A, and Alpha Centauri B is in the upper right.

A gas giant (bottom right in this illustration) might orbit one of the solar system’s nearest sunlike stars, Alpha Centauri A (upper left). It’s part of a star system that includes another sunlike star, Alpha Centauri B (upper right).

NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, R. Hurt (Caltech/IPAC)

By McKenzie Prillaman

A sunlike star next door called Alpha Centauri A may host a huge planet, researchers report in two studies in press in Astrophysical Journal Letters.