Astronomers found strong evidence that a gassy Jupiter-size world is orbiting one of three stars in the stellar system closest to our own.

It would orbit within Alpha Centauri A’s habitable zone, the starlight-bathed region where liquid water can persist on a planet’s surface. Announced on August 7 and described in two preprint papers that have been accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal Letters,

It's not easy to uncover exoplanets, largely lightless objects that either lurk in the dark void of space or are blown out by the light of a nearby star. But astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope believe they've found a new one — and it's just four light years away.