The Complicated History of Planets Around Barnard’s Star

Perhaps no other star system has elicited so much wonder, mystery and frustration as Barnard’s Star.Astronomers announced last Wednesday they’d discovered a planet in its thrall weighing in at around three Earth-masses, with a frigid, 233-day orbit. The find finally answers whether we have any planetary neighbors in the second-closest system to Earth (after Alpha Centauri).This follows more than 50 years of scrutinizing the star, and coming up empty. A 1999 study ruled out any gas gi