Submission + - Astronomers Search for Earth-Like Planet Next Door (blogspot.com) 1
The hunt for that Earth-like planet around Alpha Centauri B is now underway in Chile.
According to the NASA/JPL website Planet Quest:
At a little over four light years from Earth, the sunlike star Alpha Centauri B — actually a member of a three-star system — is our sun's closest neighbor and practically a stone's throw away in celestial terms.
[The] planet-hunting team is using a telescope in Chile to keep an eye on the star for the next three years, in order to collect enough data to determine whether or not the next Earthlike planet lies next door.
Such a planet would be too small to see, but its gravity will pull on its host star, making it rock back and forth in a way that the telescope can detect. With NASA funding, they're also working on simulations that may be able to predict how a solar system could have formed around our cosmic neighbor.
I wish them success. Other searches for a planet around the nearest star, Proxima Centauri, have so far yielded nothing — but the quest continues.
You can read the full Planet Quest article here.