Closest stars and exoplanets to the sun mapped in detail

摘要

A COSMIC census of the currently known objects in the vicinity of our sun has revealed that there are 540 stars and planets in the immediate neighbourhood. Using existing databases of objects alongside data from the European Space Agency's Gaia telescope, which is mapping billions of stars in our galaxy, Celine Reyle at the UTIN AM Institute in France and her colleagues pooled all knowledge of objects within 10 parsecs, or 33 light years, of our sun. While previous surveys have counted the stars in this region, no complete census has been made of the other known objects here too. These include planets and brown dwarfs, which are failed stars that never quite grew large enough to ignite nuclear fusion in their cores.