The closest systems
This table lists each star with confirmed planets, nearest first. The archive gives distances in parsecs, and here one parsec is 3.26 light years.
| Star | Confirmed planets | Distance (light years) | Star temperature | Found by | First listed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Proxima Cen | b, d | 4.24 | 2,900 K | Radial Velocity | 2016 |
| Barnard's star | b, c, d, e | 5.96 | 3,195 K | Radial Velocity | 2024 |
| eps Eri | b | 10.45 | 5,020 K | Radial Velocity | 2000 |
| GJ 887 | b, c, d, e | 10.72 | 3,688 K | Radial Velocity | 2020 |
| Ross 128 | b | 11.01 | 3,192 K | Radial Velocity | 2017 |
| Gl 725 A | b | 11.49 | 3,433 K | Radial Velocity | 2025 |
| GJ 15 A | b, c | 11.62 | 3,607 K | Radial Velocity | 2014 |
| tau Cet | f, g, h | 11.75 | 5,310 K | Radial Velocity | 2017 |
| eps Ind A | b | 11.87 | 4,700 K | Radial Velocity | 2019 |
| GJ 1061 | b, c, d | 11.98 | 2,953 K | Radial Velocity | 2020 |
| YZ Cet | b, c, d | 12.11 | 3,151 K | Radial Velocity | 2017 |
| Teegarden's Star | b, c, d | 12.49 | 3,034 K | Radial Velocity | 2019 |
| Kapteyn | c | 12.83 | 3,550 K | Radial Velocity | 2014 |
| Wolf 1061 | b, c, d | 14.04 | 3,342 K | Radial Velocity | 2015 |
| GJ 9066 | c | 14.58 | 3,154 K | Radial Velocity | 2020 |
Proxima Centauri: the nearest star and its planets
Proxima Centauri is the closest star to the Sun, 4.24 light years away, and it's a faint red dwarf, about 2,900 K at the surface. Its planet Proxima b was announced by the European Southern Observatory on August 24, 2016. A team led by Guillem Anglada-Escudé found it from the way the star's light shifts back and forth, using the HARPS spectrograph, in a campaign they called Pale Red Dot.
The archive lists Proxima b with an orbit of 11.2 days and a minimum mass of 1.05 Earth masses, so it's at least about as heavy as Earth. Its year is short because the star is dim and the planet has to hug it to stay warm. That has a cost: Proxima is a flare star, and the ultraviolet and X-ray output at the planet could be many times what Earth gets, enough to strip an atmosphere. The archive also lists Proxima d, a lighter planet of 0.26 Earth masses on a 5.1-day orbit. A proposed third planet, Proxima c, is disputed and isn't in the table.
Barnard's Star and the problem of false alarms
Barnard's Star, 5.96 light years away, shows how hard small planets are to pin down. In 2018 a team announced a candidate planet there, and by 2021 the signal had been traced to the star's own activity instead. The planets now in the archive date from 2024 onward, found with the ESPRESSO and MAROON-X spectrographs, and there are 4 of them. Even the heaviest has a minimum mass of only 0.34 Earth masses, lighter than half of Earth, with orbits of a few days.
The same problem shows up across the list. Tau Ceti, a Sun-like star 11.8 light years away, has 3 planets in the archive, and the archive flags all of them as controversial. The signals are tiny compared with the noise from the star's own activity, so they're hard to prove. Treat the nearest planets as strong leads, not settled facts.
Why the nearest planets were found by wobble
All 15 of the nearest systems in the table were found with radial velocity alone, the method that measures how a star moves toward and away from us. The reason is geometry. A transit needs the orbit to line up with our view, and for most nearby stars it doesn't. The closest transiting planets in the archive are around LTT 1445 A, 22.4 light years away, found by TESS. See how exoplanets are discovered for the odds.
The wobble method also favors red dwarfs. They're small, so a planet pulls them harder, and their habitable zones are close in, so even a modest planet gives a clear signal. The nearest planets listed so far almost all circle cool stars, which is one reason the habitable-zone list is dominated by them.
The few neighbors that aren't red dwarfs
Only 3 of the 15 nearest planet-hosting stars are warmer than 4,500 K: eps Eri (10.4 light years), tau Cet (11.8 light years), eps Ind A (11.9 light years). These orange and yellow stars are the closest things to the Sun on the list, and each of them has had its planets found by the same wobble method. Their planets matter for a simple reason. A planet around a star like these gets its warmth from a Sun-like source, so it's a fairer comparison for the solar system than a planet around a red dwarf.
The wait for more is a matter of precision. Star wobbles shrink as planets get lighter and orbits get longer, which is why Earth-mass planets in year-long orbits around these stars are still out of reach. Exoplanets are among the science goals of ESO's Extremely Large Telescope in Chile, still under construction, and nearby stars are the natural targets for such telescopes.
How many are close
The nearby sample is small, and it grows slowly as astronomers detect smaller and fainter planets around the closest stars.
How far away is close?
Of the 227 planets within 50 light years, 189 were found by radial velocity and 31 by transits. Radial velocity dominates the nearest few light years, and transits take over as the volume grows, because a larger volume holds many more stars and a few of them are lined up in the right way.
Close is relative. Light from Proxima takes 4.2 years to reach us, and the travel-time page for the nearest star shows what that means for today's spacecraft. Only 6 planets are known within 10 light years, and 60 within 20, out of 6,451 in the archive. You can convert any distance in the table to light-travel time with the light travel time calculator.
What the list doesn't say
Being close doesn't make a planet easy to study or a good place to live. Look at the star temperatures in the table: the nearest planets mostly orbit cool, dim stars, where a planet is easiest to spot as a wobble or a dimming. Distances can change a little as astronomers refine their measurements, so treat the figures as the archive's current best values.
The nearest sun-like stars are missing from the list. Alpha Centauri A and B sit about 4.4 light years away, but the archive holds no confirmed planets for them. A 2012 claim for a planet around Alpha Centauri B was refuted in 2015 as a data-processing artifact. Webb images taken in 2024 show a candidate gas giant about 2 AU from Alpha Centauri A, reported in 2025 (see Webb for the telescope). It hasn't been re-detected and needs more observations.
Most of these neighbors circle small, dim red dwarfs. See how planets are spread across every type of star.