Earth-sized planet found in Alpha Centauri by European
astronomers using HARPS telescopeBy Angel Cuala on Oct 17, 2012
in Astronomy, Science • European astronomers announced on
Tuesday, October 16, 2012 their discovery of an Earth-sized
planet in Alpha Centauri, the star system closest to our plant.
The said planet was reportedly only 4.3 light years away from
Earth, and was detected using a High Accuracy Radial Velocity
Planet Searcher (HARPS) telescope. According to a report by
European Southern Observatory (ESO) on its official website that
day, the unnamed planet was discovered by the astronomers using
the 3.6-metre telescope HARPS instrument at ESO‘s La Silla
Observatory in Chile. Search of such kind of planets was said to
be going on since the nineteenth century. Alpha Centauri is
known to be a system composed of of two stars (Alpha Centauri A
and B) similar to the Sun and are orbiting close to each other;
and a faint red component known as Proxima Centauri, which is
slightly closer to Earth than A or B