Right in the neighborhood: a super-Earth orbiting Barnard’s Star

The closest individual star to the Sun is apparently orbited by a rocky planet. This was discovered by astronomers using the radial velocity method. This method is based on the fact that stars and planets affect each other. With each revolution of a planet around its host star, the star will also move a little, toward and away from the Earth. This produces a red-shift or blue-shift in the star’s light and this shift can be measured.

However, the effect is very small, so very precise observati...