The nearest stars, their distances in light-years, and known planets. Karl Tate is a SPACE.com contributor.
Our universe is speckle by stars. While our closest star is the sun that we are in, we can see what stellar neighbors are nearby.
There are three stars that are 4.37 light-years away in the Alpha Centauri triple-star system. One light-year is approximately 9 trillion kilometers.
Our Earthly definition of "close" in space is far different.
Does every star have planets?
There are some good videos for you. It was created with a sketch.
Only two stars are the same type as our sun, a G-type main-sequence star. Our sun has a surface temperature of 10,340 degrees F and has a solar mass of about 1.0 solar mass.
Alpha Centauri A and Tau Ceti are the only other G stars in our neighborhood. Red dwarfs, also known as M-type stars, are the most common stars in the universe.
Only nine of the stars in this area are bright enough to be seen by the naked eye. There are many bright stars, including Alpha Centauri A and B, Procyon, 61 Cygni A and B, Epsilon Indi A and Tau Ceti.
The largest proper motion of any known star can be found in the red dwarf Barnard's Star. The rate at which the Star moves against the background of more distant stars is 10.3 seconds per Earth year.
The star is the most bright in the night sky due to its brightness and proximity to us. The white dwarf star, named Sirius B, has a mass 98 percent that of the sun.
Astronomers discovered that there may be five planets in the star's habitable zone. The Alpha Centauri triple-star system also has a G-type star, but it is much closer to us.
The planets are between two and six times the mass of Earth.
The page was updated by a senior writer.
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