Astronomers have identified a quartet of small rocky planets orbiting Barnard's star - one of our closest stellar neighbors - though they concluded that all of them are too hot to harbor life, much like our solar system's innermost planet Mercury.

Astronomers have discovered not one, but four tiny planets orbiting Barnard’s Star, our cosmic neighbor. These planets, each about a fifth the mass of Earth, whip around their host star in just days—likely too hot for life but a major milestone in detecting smaller planets.