Gliese 682 or GJ 682 is a
red dwarf
''Red Dwarf'' is a British science fiction comedy franchise created by Rob Grant and Doug Naylor, which primarily consists of a television sitcom that aired on BBC Two between 1988 and 1999, and on Dave since 2009, gaining a cult following. T ...
. It is listed as the 49th-nearest known star to the
Sun
The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is a nearly perfect ball of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core. The Sun radiates this energy mainly as light, ultraviolet, and infrared radi ...
, being about 16
light year
A light-year, alternatively spelled light year, is a large unit of length used to express astronomical distances and is equivalent to about 9.46 trillion kilometers (), or 5.88 trillion miles ().One trillion here is taken to be 1012 ...
s away from the Earth. Even though it is close by, it is dim with a
magnitude
Magnitude may refer to:
Mathematics
*Euclidean vector, a quantity defined by both its magnitude and its direction
*Magnitude (mathematics), the relative size of an object
*Norm (mathematics), a term for the size or length of a vector
*Order of ...
of 10.95 and thus requires a
telescope
A telescope is a device used to observe distant objects by their emission, absorption, or reflection of electromagnetic radiation. Originally meaning only an optical instrument using lenses, curved mirrors, or a combination of both to observe ...
to be seen. It is located in the constellation of
Scorpius
Scorpius is a zodiac constellation located in the Southern celestial hemisphere, where it sits near the center of the Milky Way, between Libra to the west and Sagittarius to the east. Scorpius is an ancient constellation that pre-dates the Gre ...
, near the bright star
Theta Scorpii
Theta Scorpii (θ Scorpii, abbreviated Theta Sco, θ Sco) is a binary star in the southern zodiac constellation of Scorpius. The apparent visual magnitude of this star is +1.87, making it readily visible to the naked eye and one of the brig ...
.
The star is in a crowded region of sky near the
Galactic Center
The Galactic Center or Galactic Centre is the rotational center, the barycenter, of the Milky Way galaxy. Its central massive object is a supermassive black hole of about 4 million solar masses, which is called Sagittarius A*, a compact rad ...
, and so appears to be near a number of deep-sky objects from the Solar System's perspective. The star is only 0.5 degrees from the much more distant globular cluster
NGC 6388
NGC 6388 is a globular cluster located in the constellation Scorpius. The cluster was discovered by Scottish astronomer James Dunlop on May 13, 1826 using a reflector telescope. Due to its moderate apparent magnitude
Apparent magnitude () is ...
.
Hypothetical planetary system
Two candidate planets were detected orbiting Gliese 682 in 2014, one of which would be in the
habitable zone
In astronomy and astrobiology, the circumstellar habitable zone (CHZ), or simply the habitable zone, is the range of orbits around a star within which a planetary surface can support liquid water given sufficient atmospheric pressure.J. F. Kas ...
.
However, a 2020 study did not find these planets and concluded that the
radial velocity
The radial velocity or line-of-sight velocity, also known as radial speed or range rate, of a target with respect to an observer is the temporal rate of change, rate of change of the distance or Slant range, range between the two points. It is e ...
signals were probably caused by stellar activity.
See also
*
List of nearest stars
This list covers all known stars, brown dwarfs, and sub-brown dwarfs within of the Sun. So far, 131 such objects have been found, of which only 22 are bright enough to be visible without a telescope. The visible light needs to reach or exce ...
References
{{Stars of Scorpius
0682
M-type main-sequence stars
Scorpius (constellation)
086214
CD-44 11909
TIC objects