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Home » Space/Science

The local bubble January 25, 2016 5:05 pm ER

Every year, The Observer’s Handbook of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada publishes a list of the nerest stars to our Sun. The list changes yearly, as new objects are discovered and the information is refined and updated by new research.

The 2016 list includes all 52 known systems (66 stars), with their planetary and stellar companions if known, within 5.0 parsecs (16.3 light years). The extract below includes all systems brighter than magnitude 7.0. Magnitude 6.5 is considered about the faintest star visible to the naked eye, although some of these below may be glimpsed by people with exceptionally acute vision. Note that of the 52 systems within 16 ly, only 11 are naked eye objects. This suggests that most stars are very faint, and the thousands we can see at night must be very bright, and very far away.

The stars are listed in order of distance, along with their names, companions and planets, where known..

D = distance in light years

Spectrum = spectral class,(O,B,A,F,G,K,M) from O (hottest, blue) to M (coolest, red). D denotes a white dwarf, T a brown dwarf. The Roman numeral is the luminosity class, from V (dwarf) to I (brightest supergiant).

mv = apparent magnitude, or how bright the star appears to us here on earth.

Mv = absolute magnitude, how bright the star would appear if located at a standard distance of 10 pc (32.6 ly)

Stellar companions of each system are listed even if they are fainter than mv = 7.0

More info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nearest_stars_and_brown_dwarfs

sorry about the formatting…

Name D Spectrum mv Mv

Sol +8p <<1.0 G2V -26.72 4.83

Alpha Centauri C 4.24 M5.0V 11.09 15.52
A 4.36 G2V 0.01 4.38
B +1p 4.36 K0.0V 1.34 5.71

Alpha Canis Majoris (Sirius)
A 8.58 A1V -1.43 1.47
B 8.58 DA2 9.44 11.34

Epsilon Eridani +1p 10.48 K2.0V 3.73 6.20

61 Cygni A 11.4 K5.0V 5.21 7.49
B 11.4 K7.0V 6.03 8.31

Alpha Canis Minoris (Procyon)
A 11.44 F5IV-V 0.37 2.65
B 11.44 DQZ 10.70 12.98

Epsilon Indi A 11.81 K3.0V 4.68 6.89
B 11.81 T1.0V ** **
C 11.81 T6.0V ** **

Tau Ceti 11.91 G8.5V 3.49 5.68

AX Microscopium 12.87 K9.0V 6.67 8.69

BD +50 1725 15.87 K7.0V 6.56 8.12

Omicron 2 Eridani

A 16.26 K0.5V 4.43 5.94
B 16.26 DA4 9.52 11.03
C 16.26 M4.0V 11.24 12.75

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