Alpha Centauri Bb

Also known as α Cen B b

disproven exoplanet

Key facts

Discovered by: Dumusque et al.
Discovery site: La Silla Observatory , Chile
Discovery date: 16 October 2012
Detection method: Radial velocity
Star: Alpha Centauri B

via Wikipedia infobox

~8 min read

Encyclopedic overview

Alpha Centauri Bb (α Cen Bb) was a proposed exoplanet orbiting the K-type main-sequence star Alpha Centauri B (Toliman), located 4.37 light-years from Earth in the southern constellation of Centaurus, but there has not been enough evidence to support the claim.

The claimed discovery of the planet was announced in October 2012 by a team of European observers, and the finding received widespread media attention. However, the announcement was met with scepticism by some astronomers, who thought that the European team was over-interpreting its data.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Alpha Centauri Bb” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.