The search for habitable exoplanets spans far and wide, pushing the limits of what our modern telescopes are capable of. But rest assured that we aren’t ignoring what’s in our own backyard.

Alpha Centauri, the nearest star system to our own, sits 4.37 light-years away. At the speed Voyager 1 travels, reaching it would take roughly 73,000 years. But a growing body of research suggests ...