[3][6] However, the existence of this planet was refuted in 2021, when the radial velocity signal was found to originate from long-term activity on the star itself, related to its rotation.

[7][1] This planet was thought to orbit every 233 days at 0.4 AU, near the stellar system's snow line, and to have a minimum mass of 3.2 ME.

The planet would have most likely been frigid, with an estimated equilibrium temperature of about 105 K (−168 °C; −271 °F), placing it outside its host star's presumed habitable zone.

[3] On 1 October 2024, the discovery of the planet now known as Barnard b was announced by a team of astronomers led by Jonay González Hernández, using radial velocity data from the ESPRESSO spectrograph on the Very Large Telescope.

Additionally, three other candidate low-mass planets were proposed in this study, all orbiting closer to the star than the habitable zone.