Barnard's Star is the second-nearest star system to Earth, and four tiny planets have been discovered around it

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.

Exciting new research suggests there are four miniature planets orbiting Barnard’s Star, each thought to be just 20 to 30% the mass of Earth.

Using in part the Gemini North telescope, one half of the International Gemini Observatory, partly funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation and operated by NSF NOIRLab, astronomers have discovered four sub-Earth exoplanets orbiting Barnard’s Star,

Barnard’s Star is our cosmic neighbor, and yet we know so little about it,” said Ritvik Basant, Ph.D student at the University of Chicago