The nearest star around which a planetary candidate has now been detected is Lalande 21185, an M2-class red dwarf ( visual magnitude +7.5) at a distance of 2.5 parsecs or about 7.5 light years. It has two planets at distances of 2 and 10 AUs (Lalande 21185 b and Lalande 21185 c).
These planets were detected by George Gatewood and announced in June, 1996. He used an astrometric method based on studying the position of this star in the sky over a 50-year time scale. The minute wiggles in the star's position could be fit by two Jupiter-sized planets orbiting with periods of about 6 and 30 years.
Copyright 1997 Dr. Sten Odenwald
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