Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have found strong evidence for a new exoplanet — one orbiting Alpha Centauri A, the nearest sun-like star to Earth. It's located just four light-years away from us, in the Alpha Centauri triple-star system.

Using JWST's Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI), the team imaged Alpha Centauri with a coronagraphic mask to remove the glare from the stars, allowing them to see much fainter objects like planets. That revealed a potential orbiting world some 10,000 times fainter than Alpha Centauri A.

While the planet candidate is in Alpha Centauri A's habitable zone — the range of distances from a star where it's possible for liquid water to exist on a world's surface — it is a gas giant and thus wouldn't be able to support life as we know it. Sti

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