Angular map of fusors around Sol within 12ly

This list covers all known

star A star is an astronomical object comprising a luminous spheroid of plasma (physics), plasma held together by its gravity. The List of nearest stars and brown dwarfs, nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Many other stars are visible to the naked ...

s, brown dwarfs, and

sub-brown dwarf A sub-brown dwarf or planetary-mass brown dwarf is an astronomical object that formed in the same manner as stars and brown dwarfs (i.e. through the collapse of a gas cloud) but that has a planetary mass, therefore by definition below the limi ...

s 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 exceed the dimmest brightness to be visible to the naked eye from Earth, 6.5 apparent magnitude. The known 131 objects are bound in 94

stellar systems A star system or stellar system is a small number of stars that orbit each other, bound by gravity, gravitational attraction. A large group of stars bound by gravitation is generally called a ''star cluster'' or ''galaxy'', although, broadly ...

. Of those, 103 are main sequence stars: 80

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 ...

s and 23 "typical" stars having greater mass. Additionally, astronomers have found 6 white dwarfs (stars that have exhausted all fusible hydrogen), 20 brown dwarfs, as well as 2 sub-brown dwarfs:

WISE 0855−0714 WISE 0855−0714 (full designation WISE J085510.83−071442.5, or W0855 for short) is a sub-brown dwarf () from Earth, therefore the fourth- closest star or (sub-) brown dwarf system to the Sun, the discovery of which was announced i ...

(probably a rogue planet) and WISE 1741+2553. The closest system is

Alpha Centauri Alpha Centauri ( Latinized from α Centauri and often abbreviated Alpha Cen or α Cen) is a triple star system in the constellation of Centaurus. It consists of 3 stars: Alpha Centauri A (officially Rigil Kentaurus), Alpha Centaur ...

, with

Proxima Centauri Proxima Centauri is a small, low-mass star located away from the Sun in the southern constellation of Centaurus. Its Latin name means the 'nearest tarof Centaurus'. It was discovered in 1915 by Robert Innes and is the nearest-kno ...

as the closest star in that system, at 4.2465 light-years from Earth. The brightest, most massive and most luminous object among those 131 is

Sirius A Sirius is the brightest star in the night sky. Its name is derived from the Greek word , or , meaning 'glowing' or 'scorching'. The star is designated α Canis Majoris, Latinized to Alpha Canis Majoris, and abbreviated Alpha CMa ...

, which is also the brightest object in Earth's night sky; its white dwarf companion Sirius B is the hottest object among them. The largest object within the 20 light-years is Procyon. Our Solar System, and the other stars/dwarfs listed here, are currently moving within (or near) the

Local Interstellar Cloud The Local Interstellar Cloud (LIC), also known as the Local Fluff, is an interstellar cloud roughly across, through which the Solar System is moving. This feature overlaps a region around the Sun referred to as the solar neighborhood. It is unk ...

, roughly across. The Local Interstellar Cloud is, in turn, contained inside the Local Bubble, a cavity in the interstellar medium about across. It contains Ursa Major and the

Hyades Hyades may refer to: * Hyades (band) *Hyades (mythology) *Hyades (star cluster) The Hyades (; Greek Ὑάδες, also known as Caldwell 41, Collinder 50, or Melotte 25) is the nearest open cluster and one of the best-studied star clusters. Loca ...

star cluster Star clusters are large groups of stars. Two main types of star clusters can be distinguished: globular clusters are tight groups of ten thousand to millions of old stars which are gravitationally bound, while open clusters are more loosely clust ...

, among others. The Local Bubble also contains the neighboring G-Cloud, which contains the stars

and Altair. In the galactic context, the Local Bubble is a small part of the

Orion Arm The Orion Arm is a minor spiral arm of the Milky Way Galaxy that is across and approximately in length, containing the Solar System, including Earth. It is also referred to by its full name, the Orion–Cygnus Arm, as well as Local Arm, Orion ...

, which contains most stars that we can see without a telescope. The Orion arm is one of the

spiral arms Spiral galaxies form a class of galaxy originally described by Edwin Hubble in his 1936 work ''The Realm of the Nebulae''Milky Way galaxy.

Astrometrics

The easiest way to determine stellar distance to the Sun for objects at these distances is

parallax Parallax is a displacement or difference in the apparent position of an object viewed along two different lines of sight and is measured by the angle or semi-angle of inclination between those two lines. Due to foreshortening, nearby objects ...

, which measures how much stars appear to move against background objects over the course of Earth's orbit around the Sun. As a parsec (parallax-second) is defined by the distance of an object that would appear to move exactly one second of arc against background objects, stars less than 5 parsecs away will have measured parallaxes of over 0.2 arcseconds, or 200 milliarcseconds. Determining past and future positions relies on accurate

astrometric Astrometry is a branch of astronomy that involves precise measurements of the positions and movements of stars and other celestial bodies. It provides the kinematics and physical origin of the Solar System and this galaxy, the Milky Way. Histor ...

measurements of their parallax and total

proper motion Proper motion is the astrometric measure of the observed changes in the apparent places of stars or other celestial objects in the sky, as seen from the center of mass of the Solar System, compared to the abstract background of the more dista ...

s (how far they move across the sky due to their actual velocity relative to the Sun), along with spectroscopically determined radial velocities (their speed directly towards or away from us, which combined with proper motion defines their true movement through the sky relative to the Sun). Both of these measurements are subject to increasing and significant errors over very long time spans, especially over the several thousand-year time spans it takes for stars to noticeably move relative to each other. Based on results from the

Gaia In Greek mythology, Gaia (; from Ancient Greek , a poetical form of , 'land' or 'earth'),, , . also spelled Gaea , is the personification of the Earth and one of the Greek primordial deities. Gaia is the ancestral mother—sometimes parthenog ...

telescope's second data release from April 2018, an estimated 694 stars will approach the Solar System to less than 5 parsecs in the next 15 million years. Of these, 26 have a good probability to come within and another 7 within . This number is likely much higher, due to the sheer number of stars needed to be surveyed; a star approaching the Solar System 10 million years ago, moving at a typical Sun-relative 20–200 kilometers per second, would be 600–6,000 light-years from the Sun at present day, with millions of stars closer to the Sun. The closest encounter to the Sun so far predicted is the low-mass orange dwarf star Gliese 710 / HIP 89825 with roughly 60% the mass of the Sun. It is currently predicted to pass from the Sun in million years from the present, close enough to significantly disturb the Solar System's Oort cloud.

List

The classes of the stars and brown dwarfs are shown in the color of their spectral types (these colors are derived from conventional names for the spectral types and do not necessarily represent the star's observed color). Many brown dwarfs are not listed by visual magnitude but are listed by near-infrared J band apparent magnitude due to how dim (and often invisible) they are in visible color bands (U, B or V). Absolute magnitude (with electromagnetic wave, 'light' band denoted in subscript) is a measurement at a 10-parsec distance across imaginary empty space devoid of all its sparse dust and gas. Some of the

es and resultant distances are rough measurements.

Distant future and past encounters

Over long periods of time, the slow independent motion of stars change in both relative position and in their distance from the observer. This can cause other currently distant stars to fall within a stated range, which may be readily calculated and predicted using accurate

measurements of

and total

s, along with spectroscopically determined radial velocities. Although predictions can be extrapolated back into the past or forward into the future, they are subject to increasing significant cumulative errors over very long periods. Inaccuracies of these measured parameters make determining the true minimum distances of any encountering stars or brown dwarfs fairly difficult. One of the first stars known to approach the Sun particularly close is Gliese 710. The star, whose mass is roughly half that of the Sun, is currently 62 light-years from the Solar System. It was first noticed in 1999 using data from the

Hipparcos ''Hipparcos'' was a scientific satellite of the European Space Agency (ESA), launched in 1989 and operated until 1993. It was the first space experiment devoted to precision astrometry, the accurate measurement of the positions of celestial obj ...

satellite, and was estimated will pass less than from the Sun in 1.4 million years. With the release of ''Gaia'''s observations of the star, it has since been refined to a much closer , close enough to significantly disturb objects in the Oort cloud, which extends out to from the Sun. The second-closest object known to approach the Sun was only discovered in 2018 after ''Gaia'' second data release, known as 2MASS J0610-4246. Its approach has not been fully described due to it being a distant binary star with a red dwarf, but almost certainly passed less than 1 light-year from the Solar System roughly 1.16 million years ago. ''Gaia'' third data release has provided updated values for many of the candidates in the table below.

Notes

References

External links

"The 100 nearest star systems"
'' Research Consortium on Nearby Stars'' * * * *
The dynamics of the closest stars
*
Nearest Stars 3D View
*Table 4 "The Census of Stars and Brown Dwarfs within 8 Parsecs of the Sun" in {{Portal bar, Astronomy, Stars, Spaceflight, Outer space, Solar System nearest stars and brown dwarfs Local Bubble nearest stars and brown dwarfs Articles containing video clips nearest stars and brown dwarfs