Astronomy

Just 6 light-years away, Barnard’s Star is a well-studied 10-billion-year-old M dwarf with a mass of 0.16 solar mass. Finding exoplanets around Barnard’s Star has been something of a white whale for astronomers for more than half a century; starting in the 1960s, researchers have claimed to have spotted various planets around Barnard’s Star, from distant Jupiter-mass companions to close-in super-Earths. Each of these claims has been refuted.

Now, the white whale appears to have been caught at last. Just last November, researchers reported the discovery of a planet orbiting Barnard’s Star with a period of 3.154 days. The data hinted at the presence of three other planets, but these candidates could not be confirmed. In a new research article published today, Ritvik Basant (University of Chicago) and collaborators leveraged years of data to confirm that Barnard’s Star hosts not just one, but four planets.