SPACE.com -- Star Search Finds Neighborly Red Dwarf

This is an artist's concept of a recently-discovered nearby star. The star, SO25300.5+165258, is a faint red dwarf star estimated to be about 7.8 light-years from Earth in the direction of the constellation Aries. Click to enlarge.

This is an artist's concept of the local stellar neighborhood, including newfound star SO25300.5+165258. The relative distance of Barnard's Star and the Alpha Centauri system can be seen in relation to the new red dwarf. Click to enlarge.

This is a size comparison of new star SO25300.5+165258 (red sphere on left) and the Sun. The radius of the new star is just 1/7 that of the Sun. Click to enlarge.

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	Star Search Finds Neighborly Red Dwarf By SPACE.com Staff posted: 03:50 pm ET 20 May 2003

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Astronomers have stumbled onto a previously unknown star in Earth's stellar neighborhood, a red dwarf that appears to be the third-closest star system to our own.

"Our new stellar neighbor is a pleasant surprise, since we weren't looking for it," Bonnard Teegarden, an astrophysicist with NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, said in a written statement.

Teegarden, the lead author of the study, and his colleagues happened upon the star while searching for nearby white dwarfs, the remains of collapsed stars that quickly traverse the night sky. Astronomers track white dwarfs like they track planets and near earth objects, by tracking their change in position over time. The study of these dead stars can then help estimate the mass and ages of galaxies.

"These and other stars make up the tapestry through which near earth asteroids travel, which is our main concern," said Steven Pravdo, who collaborated on the star search, during a telephone interview. Pravdo is the project director for NASA's Near-Earth Asteroid Tracking (NEAT) program, which supplied a database full of sky observations - originally meant to find objects that might impact Earth - for Teegarden to sift through.

It was while going through the database that researchers discovered the dim red dwarf, which shines about 300,000 times fainter than the Sun. It's faintness has veiled it from astronomers until now, researchers said.

NASA astronomers estimate the newly discovered star to sit about 7.8 light years from Earth towards the constellation Aries. The closest star to Earth is Alpha Centauri, which is actually a set of triplets burning brightly about four light years away. Barnard's Star, the next-nearest neighbor is a slightly further hop at about six light years form Earth. One light year is about six trillion miles (9.5 trillion kilometers).

U.S. Naval Observatory is currently taking more observations of the star to pin down its exact distance from Earth. Teegarden's research on the red dwarf will appear in the publication Astrophysical Journal, although a final publication date has yet to be set.