The planet named Proxima b is in a "temperate" zone compatible with the presence of liquid water -- a key ingredient for life.
The findings, based on data collected over 16 years, were reported in the peer-reviewed journal Nature. According to Julien Morin, an astrophysicist at the University of Montpellier in southern France.
"Proxima b would probably be the first exoplanet visited by a probe made by humans," he told AFP. An exoplanet is any planet outside our solar system.
Guillem Anglada-Escude, an astronomer and his team used the so-called Doppler method to detect Proxima b and describe its properties.
The professional star-gazers spent 60 consecutive days earlier this year looking for signs of gravitational pull on its host star, Proxima Centauri.
Regular shifts in the star's light spectrum -- repeating every 11.2 days -- gave a tantalising clue.
A planet so near to our Sun -- 21 times closer than Earth -- would be unlivable white-hot ball of fire. But Proxima Centauri is a so-called red dwarf, meaning a star that burns at a lower temperature.
The newly-discovered planet is in a "Goldilocks" sweet spot: neither so hot that water evaporates, nor so called that it freezes solid.
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