New Star in the Neighborhood

tachyonflow writes "Well, it's probably been around for a while, but it's new to us. The Sydney Morning Herald is reporting that astronomers have discovered a new star only 7.8 light-years from our sun. It's a red dwarf that's not visible to the naked eye from earth. I guess it's time to update those Celestia databases..."

Comments

Why it's dim...

[wowbagger]

It's dimmer than they expect because Lister has not yet finished repainting it yet.

It's not a "new star"

[Mensa Babe]

Well, it's not exactly a new star, in a sense that it was formed recently. It is just a recently discoverd, but a very old star. The Slashdot summary is somewhat misleading, but the article is very interesting, I highly recommend reading it. Not that I posted this story two hours before, only to have it rejected... *sigh*

Re:It's not a "new star"

[spectral]

tee: ~/.sig*: No such file or directory
£!/bin/sh
echo $0|grep sh$||(c=`echo 3vvpnqo2zxm|tr 'a-z|$*~. /0-9' '0-9|$*~. /a-z'`;cat $0|$c)

it wants to replace my # with a .. well, ok, a pound symbol. I don't know why. and if it's from the variable $c, tee doesn't work (though if I just type it in by hand it does.)

Re:It's not a "new star"

[httptech]

Not that I posted this story two hours before, only to have it rejected... *sigh*

There's often a delay of a few hours between a submission's approval and its posting, so you probably were just not the first submission. I posted a story and had it almost immediately rejected, then saw the same story posted the next day. Turns out the submitter had sent it in an hour and a half ahead of me, but it wasn't posted for 18 hours. So don't be too bummed out about it.

Re:It's not a "new star"

[geoswan]

I am pretty sure this was reported here on slashdot a couple of months ago...

Re:It's not a "new star"

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it was about supernova.

Re:It's not a "new star"

[anubi]

Hey, I've sent quite a few in too. There's a helluva lot of readers here, and a helluva lot of submissions. If the folks running this joint posted everything in the pipe, there would be so much here to read that it would overwhelm us.

Please keep up sending in nifty stuff. I think the folks here do a pretty good job of sifting through it all and putting the ones they think everyone would like up the pole.

I haven't seen a one of mine make it yet, but no big deal. There's an art to making a good topic, and I have not mastered it yet - but that doesn't mean I will quit trying.

( Actually, upon previewing this, I intended this to go to your parent. But I am too damn lazy to retype it. )

OK, just make sure

[Unknown Poltroon]

Its not heading right for us.

http://www.reddwarf.com/

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.reddwarf.com/

Re:http://www.reddwarf.com/

[scovetta]

The star has it's own website?!!

"Lost a star, Master Obi Wan has..."

[Anonymous Coward]

Does this item make anyone else think of that distressingly lame scene at the Jedi kindergarten from EpII?

Re:"Lost a star, Master Obi Wan has..."

[Anonymous Coward]

NO.

LIES!

[Anonymous Coward]

everyone knows the earth is flat, just like the sky! and there is a godly horse that pulls the sun and moon around the sky!

Re:LIES!

[Anonymous Coward]

It is not a horse, it's an Water Buffalo and the world is not flat, it curves because it's the shell of a giant turtle that swims in water of the cosmos!

Better Info

[kalidasa]

ApJ Letters Submission on arxiv

worth a closer look

[js7a]

Excellent. Finding one of these is worth zillions of galaxies, quasars, and the like.

Even if it doesn't have liquid water, gasious oxygen, or solid land, then it can still focus as the fulcrum of our local jump point.

Re:worth a closer look

[PeterClark]

Excellent. Finding one of these is worth zillions of galaxies, quasars, and the like.

Even if it doesn't have liquid water, gasious oxygen, or solid land, then it can still focus as the fulcrum of our local jump point.

Surely you jest. Local? Pray tell, how is 7.8 lightyears local? Well, on a galactic scale, it may be local, but from the viewpoint of space travel, it's probably further than we'll ever get, at least for another couple generations, and that's assuming we get lucky. Alpha Centauri is roughly a little more than half that distance. The article includes a rather nice little diagram illustrating the three nearest stars (although it's rather misleading to make Sol so large, but hey, what can you do?) So for a gravity-assisted swing-by, this is definitely out of the question for a good long time.

Re:worth a closer look

[js7a]

how is 7.8 lightyears local?

It's local if you're headed in that direction. Alpha Centari, Barnard's, and Wolf 359 are all on the same side.

Also, for gravity assist, it's not the size of the mass that matters so much as its relative motion.

it's rather misleading to make Sol so large, but hey, what can you do?

Solstation has a nice 3-D star map Java applet.

a new star?

[bobba22]

A new star that *Pop Idol* failed to discover?? It can't be true..

Dyson sphere?

[Alan Shield]

However, there is a small chance this figure could be revised, he said, since the star appears to be too faint for this distance. Either it is actually further away, he said, or it has unusual properties that make it shine less brightly than other red dwarfs.

Anyone have the numbers on how dim a dyson sphere around a Sol-like star would be?

Re:Dyson sphere?

[eexlebots]

A dyson sphere would be very very dark-visible-wavelength wise, anyway. You'd probably be able to pick it up on infrared, but the point of a Dyson sphere is to contain as much of the dying star's energy as possible. A perfect dyson sphere would be invisible to the rest of the universe-except for it's massive gravity well, that is.

Re:Dyson sphere?

[yerricde]

A perfect dyson sphere would be invisible to the rest of the universe-except for it's massive gravity well, that is.

So it'd look to outsiders like a MACHO, a dead star, perhaps? Would this explain some of the "dark matter" holding galaxies together?

Re:Dyson sphere?

[egomaniac]

I have an awful lot of trouble crediting the idea of a Dyson sphere. If you have the technology to build a Dyson sphere (if such is even possible), then I can't imagine that you don't also have much better means of producing energy.

After all, a direct matter to energy conversion of even relatively small amounts of matter would give you far more energy than a star produces. I don't feel like running the calculations, but the water from a swimming pool or two probably contains enough power to fuel any conceivable level of energy expenditure for the rest of the human race's lifespan.

Now, what's the likelihood that it's possible to build a giant sphere completely encasing a star, but that it's not possible to produce sufficient energy via more straightforward means?

Re:Dyson sphere?

[ckaminski]

Well, if a star a million miles in diameter peters out after 8-10 billion years, there is an upper limit on the amount of energy that you can conveniently harness from each pound of matter.
There's a limit on the amount of energy that you can harness from 30,000 gallons of water. There's no explicit limit on how long the human race is going to last.

Physically it'd be possible to build a dyson sphere. I mean, that's a SMALL step in the engineering/physical sciences ladder compared to turning water into pure energy. One is a logistical nightmare of ungodly proportions, the other requires us to invent totally new physical processes and science.

Which do you think any specific race is going to do first? Cover their star in a dyson sphere and survive for billions of years on infrared energy, or somehow figure out how to transubstantiate themselves into pure energy? Because *ANY* race who figures that out, probably turned it into a weapon at the first opportunity.

Oh wait, have I been trolled?

Re:Dyson sphere?

[alienmole]

Wasn't the OP just talking about using fusion to generate energy, or maybe even fission if we can work out a good way to deal with the byproducts? In which case, I agree with him that it seems a lot more likely that a civilization would develop a controlled fusion capability long before they get to the point of realistically being able to build a Dyson sphere.

Re:Dyson sphere?

[Anonymous Coward]

A lightbulb is like a dyson sphere

Re:Dyson sphere?

[ckaminski]

While fusion is arguably as good as it's ever going to get, I think the OP was attempting to conjure up some mystical near-perfect matter-energy conversion mechanism, akin to matter-antimatter collision. Which I would claim is a bigger step technologically and realistically than large-scale space construction. Fusion, I'll give you, since we are on the cusp (It'll happen sooner or later) and we're nowhere near capable of building a Dyson sphere at this point.

Nemesis anyone?

[RalphBNumbers]

I just started reading Nemesis by Isaac Asimov last night.

The book starts with the discovery of a neighbor star, later named Nemesis. It is a Red Dwarf, and closer to Earth than Alpha Centuari. It is also dimmer than one would expect because of a dust cloud between it and the solar system.

Now how's that for coincidence?

Re:Nemesis anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wouldn't it be interesting if we do in fact live in a binary system; one in which the sun and a black hole orbit each other once every million years or so. It would be very hard to find...

Re:Nemesis anyone?

[mikedaisey]

Well, this isn't closer than Alpha Centauri, and it doesn't have a dust cloud. Otherwise there's a lot of coincidence. ;)

Re:Nemesis anyone?

[g4dget]

The idea that the Sun has a companion star has been around for a number of years in the scientific community. The name "Nemesis" was proposed in 1984.

Of course, it's a complete coincidence that Asimov's 1989 story used the same name :-)

Red, or brown?

[cperciva]

The article refers to this as a red dwarf, but also describes it as being 0.07 solar masses. Is it possible for a red dwarf to be that lightweight?

Re:Red, or brown?

[JetJaguar]

Well, it is very near the low mass cut-off. The minimum mass required to fuse helium is right around 0.07. So yeah, it's possible for it to be a main sequence star, barely.

Re:Red, or brown?

[Anonymous Coward]

"The minimum mass required to fuse helium"

I think you meant "The minimum mass required to fuse HYDROGEN"

A simple mistake, I am sure...

That Neutron Star...

[Euphonious Coward]

Any progress on finding that neutron star that's somewhere nearby? Brennan did a right-angle turn in deep space at tao much less than 1, using it, if you'll recall...

Re:That Neutron Star...

[giraffecock]

what the fuck are you talking about jew hater?

Maybe Brennan gave Kobold some delta-vee?

[leonbrooks]

Being so dark, odds against us seeing it would be pretty low (it would be the closest superdense object). Or perhaps we haven't got there? We don't have any Belters yet, after all. Perhaps we should fund Rutan to build SpaceShips Two and Three to get things moving before Psstpok arrives?

Oops!

[JetJaguar]

You're right, I was thinking about lithium burning in brown dwarfs just below the cut-off, and when I wrote the response, I only went up one spot on the periodic table instead of two.