"Fleetie" wrote in message
...
"Magnificent Universe" wrote
A faint red star in the constellation Centaurus is one of our nearest
neighbors, say astronomers in Scotland. They estimate it resides about
12
light-years away--only three times farther than Alpha Centauri.

The full story, including an animated image of the newfound star, is at
http://KenCroswell.com/SIPS1259.html .

I was really surprised to read that stars so close are still being
discovered,
and they haven't all been found by now.


Martin
--
M.A.Poyser Tel.: 07967
110890
Manchester, U.K.
http://www.fleetie.demon.co.uk



Most stars (by number counts) are faint red dwarfs (or brown dwarfs).
Because they are so faint they have only recently been included in surveys.
The only way to tell if such a star is near or far is by parallax or,
indirectly, by large proper motion. In the latter case, this requires being
found to move a bit between two exposures taken years apart, followed by a
parallax measurement.

Until recently, the second exposure did not exist and it takes time to
analyse images for such movements and determine parallax.

But there may be special circumstances surrounding the new nearby star. The
Gliese catalogue is definitely incomplete beyond 10 parsecs...

--
Mike Dworetsky

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