NASA has made a very exciting announcement that they've discovered a new giant planet that could sustain life.
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) may have spotted a brand-new planet in the closest star system to Earth.
The discovery, announced by NASA, centers on a massive gas giant orbiting Alpha Centauri A, part of the Alpha Centauri triple star system located just four light-years away.
The find has been accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal Letters and, if confirmed, could make it the closest planet in a habitable zone to our own world — though “habitable” comes with a big caveat.
While a gas giant itself wouldn’t be a place humans could walk on, its surrounding moons could be a different story. Scientists believe some of these moons might support life — though “not as we know it.”
The Alpha Centauri system is made up of the binary stars Alpha Centauri A and B, both similar to our Sun, along with the faint red dwarf Proxima Centauri.
Unfortunately for stargazers in the Northern Hemisphere, the entire system is only visible from the Southern Hemisphere.
This potential planet’s proximity is a huge win for researchers. “With this system being so close to us, any exoplanets found would offer our best opportunity to collect data on planetary systems other than our own,” explained Charles Beichman of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the NASA Exoplanet Science Institute at Caltech’s IPAC, per BBC.
But, as he warned: “These are incredibly challenging observations to make, even with the world’s most powerful space telescope, because these stars are so bright, close, and move across the sky quickly.”
The $10 billion JWST, which launched on Christmas Day 2021, used its Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) to capture the images. MIRI’s capabilities make nearby systems like Alpha Centauri easier to study than more distant worlds.
Scientists first spotted the object in August 2024, though it was initially nicknamed the “disappearing planet” by Caltech Ph.D. student and study co-author Aniket Sanghi.
At the time, orbital simulations suggested the planet might be too close to its star to appear in Webb’s images at all times.
“We found that in half of the possible orbits simulated, the planet moved too close to the star and wouldn’t have been visible to Webb in both February and April 2025,” Sanghi said.
Despite the challenge, computer modeling helped confirm that what Webb saw was most likely a planet. “If confirmed, the potential planet seen in the Webb image of Alpha Centauri A would mark a new milestone for exoplanet imaging efforts,” Sanghi added.
Though the JWST has already given astronomers one of their clearest-ever looks at the system, the team wants an even sharper image.
They may get their chance in 2027, when NASA launches the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, which could offer a more detailed view.