Barnard's Star - The Star's Neighborhood

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.