For the second time in the past eight years, astronomers examining stars in the Milky Way close to Earth discovered a planet orbiting one of these celestial objects. The first such discovery took place in 2016, when astronomers identified an exoplanet (the name for any planet beyond our solar system) orbiting the star Proxima Centauri in the 4.2-light-years-distant Alpha Centauri solar system. The latest discovery was confirmed earlier this year, when professional stargazers positively identified a small-sized planet circling a lone solar traveler known as Barnard’s star, a red dwarf that can be found 5.96 light-years from Earth. This planet was found by researchers affiliated with the Europe Southern Observatory (ESO), using a Very Large Telescope (VLT) array installed by the ESO on the summit of Cerro Paranal mountain in the Atacama Desert region of northern Chile. This extremely sensitive and powerful array of four interconnected telescopes includes an instrument known as the Echelle Spectrograph for Rocky Exoplanet and Stable Spectroscopic Observations (ESPRESSO), which can detect tiny gravitational wobbles in the orbit of a faraway star caused by another celestial body orbiting around it. The newly discovered planet caused these wobbles in the motion of Barnard’s star, and further analysis of the orbital path of this planet over a five-year period verified its true identity. Read moreSection: NewsScience & SpaceRead Later