Although Alpha Centauri is right next door in astronomical terms, no planets have been detected around its binary star system.

More than 4,000 alien planets have now been confirmed, but they’ve been largely discovered thanks to lucky alignments, said project leader Peter Tuthill, a professor of astrophysics at the University of Sydney. .

Most of the “exoplanets,” as they’re known, have been discovered by automated systems like the Kepler space telescope, which watches continuously for planets crossing in front of hundreds of thousands of stars.

The Alpha Centauri system has two stars similar to the sun, orbiting each other at about 20 times the distance between the sun and the Earth, Tuthill said.

In 2016, two planets were discovered around what could be a third star in the system — the red dwarf Proxima Centauri, discovered by telescope in 1915 and slightly closer to us than the other two.

But chemicals are being discovered on smaller and more “challenging” planets as scientists find new ways to analyze their data and as new instruments — such as the James Webb space telescope — become available, he said

Detecting chemicals and possibly biosignatures on Earth-like planets around the stars of Alpha Centauri will be difficult, but “observing the nearest and brightest planetary system is going to provide our most likely route to success,” he said