The Exoplanets That Never Were

StartsWithABang writes In 1992, scientists discovered the first planets orbiting a star other than our Sun. The pulsar PSR B1257+12 was discovered to have its own planetary system, and since then, exoplanet discoveries have exploded. But before that, in 1963, decades of research led to the much-anticipated publication and announcement of an exoplanet discovered around Barnard's star, the second-closest star system to Earth. Unfortunately, it turned out to be spurious, and it took years to uncover, an amazing story which is only now fully coming to light.

Comments

Re:Red dwarfs form from so little matter

[Trogre]

The star in question is Barnard's Star, a red dwarf.

Pulsar PSR B1257+12 was credited in the summary as an example at the start of the modern explosion in discovering extrasolar planets, not the one that was mistakenly thought to have planets.