(Credit: Wikimedia Commons) With the announcement today of an Earth-sized planet orbiting in the habitable zone of Proxima Centauri, Earthlings' attention is focused once again on our nearest stellar neighbor. The Alpha Centauri system is located some 4 light years away from Earth, which places it right in our backyard, cosmically speaking, even though it still lies roughly 25 trillion miles away from us. Spotting an exoplanet around Proxima is a huge discovery scientifically speaking, but it's all the more exciting given the cultural significance of the Alpha Centauri system. In a way, it validates the speculations of dozens of authors, directors, comic book artists and game designers who dared to dream of life somewhere out there. We don't know if anything actually exists — or even can exist — on the planet, named Proxima b, but the discovery will no doubt fuel the imaginations of a new generation of science fiction writers whose ideas now have evidence to back them up. In honor of our newest stellar neighbor, we take a look at the many ways the Alpha Centauri system found its way into works of science fiction over the years.