The Star's Neighborhood
Barnard's Star shares much the same neighborhood as the Sun. The neighbors of Barnard's Star are generally of red dwarf size, the smallest and most common star type. Its closest neighbor is currently the red dwarf Ross 154, at 1.66 parsecs or 5.41 light years distance. The Sun and Alpha Centauri are, respectively, the next closest systems. From Barnard's Star, the Sun would appear on the diametrically opposite side of the sky at coordinates RA=5h 57m 48.5s, Dec=−04° 41′ 36″, in the eastern part of the constellation Monoceros. The absolute magnitude of the Sun is 4.83 and at a distance of 1.834 parsecs, it would be an impressively bright first-magnitude star, like Pollux is from the Earth.
Read more about this topic: Barnard's Star
Famous quotes containing the words star and/or neighborhood:
“Firmness yclept in heroes, kings and seamen,
That is, when they succeed; but greatly blamed
As obstinacy, both in men and women,
Whene’er their triumph pales, or star is tamed —
And ‘twill perplex the casuist in morality
To fix the due bounds of this dangerous quality.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)
“Almost everybody in the neighborhood had “troubles,” frankly localized and specified; but only the chosen had “complications.” To have them was in itself a distinction, though it was also, in most cases, a death warrant. People struggled on for years with “troubles,” but they almost always succumbed to “complications.””
—Edith Wharton (1862–1937)