An international team of astronomers has found that a nearby
star previously thought to host two or three planets is in fact orbited by six
or seven worlds, including an unprecedented three to five “super-Earths” in its
habitable zone, where conditions could be right for life.
This is the first time that so many super-Earths — planets
more massive than Earth but less than 10 times more massive — have been
detected in the same system.