The James Webb Space Telescope recently made history by detecting a planet candidate around Alpha Centauri A—the closest Sun-like star to Earth at just 4.37 light-years away. But when astronomers looked again, it had vanished. This is the story of the most impossible observation JWST has ever attempted, and the mystery that's captivating the entire scientific community.
In this calming long-form space documentary, we explore the incredible technical challenges of observing our closest stellar neighbor, why a star being "too close" can actually make it harder to study, what the detection tells us about planets in binary star systems, and why this discovery could reshape our understanding of where life might exist in the cosmos.
