Researchers have looked at our nearest stellar neighbor and made a remarkable discovery.The Latest Tech News, Delivered to Your Inbox

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.

Considered a solitary star for its lack of stellar companions, Barnard's Star is notoriously lonely—signs of any exoplanets in its orbit have come and gone without reliable evidence. But today, astronomers know the star is in good company.

Basant's team, which also includes a researcher from Heidelberg University, found the exoplanets using the 8-meter Gemini North telescope on Mauna Kea in the US state of Hawaii. The measuring instrument used was the MAROON-X spectrograph, which was specially designed for the search for red dwarf planets.

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.