A planet with Earth-like mass "just around the corner"

Nuno Santos, from the Astrophysics Centre (CAUP) and the Faculty of Science of the University of Porto, is one of the researchers of the international team that detected a planet with Earth-like mass in Alpha Centauri B, the star system closest to the Sun. Published in the journal Nature, this discovery is a technological achievement and opens real prospects for the detection of other similar planets, among the background "noise" that exists in space. The research was funded by the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT).