It's a cool planet in a tight spot. A frigid world about 3000 light years away offers the first evidence that rocky planets can form in Earth-like orbits, even when they are jammed into close double-star systems. Although this planet probably cannot support life as we know it, the discovery greatly expands the places we can look for potentially habitable worlds outside our solar system.
In a binary star system the two partners are locked in an orbital embrace. Astronomers have found a handful of planets that orbit both partners in close binary pairs. But no one was convinced that a planet could orbit just one star at a sufficient distance to host life.
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