Summary:

- Astronomers have discovered four small planets orbiting Gliese 887, one of the closest stars to Earth at just 11 light-years away.
- The planets are all "super-Earths" - planets larger than Earth but smaller than Neptune - with the largest being about 1.8 times the size of Earth.
- The discovery provides new insights into the diversity of planetary systems around nearby stars and could help in the search for potentially habitable exoplanets.