The European Southern Observatory has just announced the detection of a planet in orbit of Alpha Centauri B. This is a roughly Sun-like star, and part of the closest star system to Earth (together with Alpha Centauri A and Proxima Centauri). The estimated mass of the planet is slightly higher than that of the Earth, but it orbits too close to the star to be in the habitable zone. Nonetheless, this is suggestive of other planets in the same system.
My day just got a lot more exciting 
Very cool discovery.
Well, actually, given that it’s got a 3.2 day orbit, it’s a pretty hot discovery.
Man. In my adult lifetime, we’ve gone from exoplanets being pure, 100% speculation, and the province of science fiction, to knowing about hundreds of them, from the closest star beyond our own Sun, all the way out to stars tens of thousands of light-years away.
This is pretty awesome.
This is totally awesome. Hopefully this will spur development of techniques to find Earth-mass planets in habitable zones.
Do we know of any stars where there almost certainly are not planets now?
With an estimated surface temperature of 1,200 C, you’d better slap on the sunscreen.
The good news is, in a system where one planet has formed, it’s likely there are others. They will be much more difficult to detect, being further from the parent star.
Well, at least with that system we have some minor chance of getting there someday. Yeah, 5 light years give or take is no walk in the park but it sure beats hundreds of light years.
Rather than start a new topic, I figure it’d be best to just add to this one:
Possible planet discovered at alpha Centauri A:
https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/alpha-centauri-might-have-a-planet-webb-telescope-finds/
This one is roughly Saturn sized.
Alpha Centauri A only has a very limited region around it which could support stable planetary orbits, because it is so close to Alpha Centauri B; if there is a Saturn-sized planet in that limited volume, then the chance that other planets are present is significantly smaller.
(some dinosaur movie)
Life finds a way
It would be hard with a dual star system - yet we cannot cross Venus, Jupiter’s moons and Jupiter itself off as lifeless. (ETA: And Saturn, perhaps Titan)
The sad thing is Earth may be the only “Class M Planet”
For now. We’re working on changing that.
They are now guessing much cooler-
Wiki-
Gotta have a star with a 10 billion year life. Be in the Goldilocks zone. Big enough to be round, small enough to not keep every bit of gas.
When another planet smashes into proto-earth it settles down to become the Moon - which doesn’t get enough credit. Enough water comes from comets to make deep oceans.
And even after multiple asteroid extinction events, life goes on. Even when the most advanced species - just now realizing that planets exist around nearby stars - destroys itself life finds a way. I’m hoping for the bees.