Barnard’s Star's Close-Orbit Planets Likely Uninhabitable
A Cambridge study of four tightly packed exoplanets around Barnard’s Star links their magnesium-rich periclase composition to poor water storage, suggesting these worlds cannot hold onto atmospheres and are likely tidally locked and extremely hostile to life; a stabilizing 9:12:16 resonance among the inner planets may influence their orbits, and future missions like PLATO could discover more small planets around nearby stars.
