Astronomers have identified a quartet of small rocky planets orbiting Barnard's star - one of our closest stellar neighbors - though they concluded that all of them are too hot to harbor life, much like our solar system's innermost planet Mercury.

Illustration of Barnard's Star as seen from the surface of one of its planets. (Credit: International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/R. Proctor/J. Pollard)

Consequently, even though it is one of the closest stars to Earth, such that its light takes only six years to get here, it is too faint to be seen with the naked eye. Now, four small planets have been found orbiting the star.

Astronomers have discovered not one, but four tiny planets orbiting Barnard’s Star, our cosmic neighbor. These planets, each about a fifth the mass of Earth, whip around their host star in just days—likely too hot for life but a major milestone in detecting smaller planets.