Alpha Centauri

Alpha Centauri, the star system next door to our own. Because of a confounding set of circumstances, this intriguing target has remained a cipher—at least, until now.

Technology is improving, and the stars are aligning, literally, to reveal potentially habitable worlds that may be hiding around Alpha Centauri. “The level of interest in finding them is definitely increasing,” says astrophysicist Ruslan Belikov of NASA’s Ames Research Center.

Over the past few weeks, Belikov’s team and another group led by Markus Kasper of the European Southern Observatory have been trying to glimpse Alpha Centauri’s putative worlds with the help of two different giant telescopes in Chile. Using new high-precision starlight-sifting instruments, researchers are gearing up for even more subtle searches. If those efforts come up empty, several groups are developing low-cost satellites to extend the planet hunt into space. And if NASA fails to fund those projects, there is another backup plan: two private efforts—the billionaire-backed Breakthrough Initiatives and the crowdfunded Project Blue—are gearing up to make the missions happen anyway.