Exoplanet discovered around  a neighbouring star By Paul RinconScience editor, BBC News website 14 November 2018 Astronomers have discovered a planet around one of the closest stars to our Sun. Nearby planets like this are likely to be prime targets in the search for signatures of life, using the next generation of telescopes. The planet's mass is thought to be more than three times that of our own, placing it in a category of the world know as "super-Earths".