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3h ago

JWST and Orbit Models Bolster Gas Giant Candidate in Alpha Centauri A’s Habitable Zone

Early non-detections align with an elliptical two-year, 1–2 AU orbit; a JWST revisit in August 2026 will test this hypothesis.

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Overview

  • JWST’s MIRI coronagraph directly imaged a faint object about two astronomical units from Alpha Centauri A that appears more than 10,000 times fainter than its host star.
  • February and April 2025 follow-up observations failed to detect the candidate, matching predictions that the planet moved too close to the star for JWST to see.
  • Orbit simulations incorporating archival ground-based data and multi-epoch JWST results rule out background or foreground sources and support a Saturn-mass, Jupiter-sized world.
  • If confirmed, this would be the nearest exoplanet ever directly imaged around a Sun-like star and the first gas giant spotted within its liquid-water zone.
  • Teams have scheduled a targeted JWST observation for August 2026 and are planning complementary studies with the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope and the European Extremely Large Telescope.