Editing 2062: Barnard's Star
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==Explanation== | ==Explanation== | ||
+ | {{incomplete|If any explanation of the comic itself is still missing please mention it here. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}} | ||
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[[File:Near-stars-past-future-en.svg|thumb|300px|Distances to the nearest stars from 20,000 years ago until 80,000 years in the future]] | [[File:Near-stars-past-future-en.svg|thumb|300px|Distances to the nearest stars from 20,000 years ago until 80,000 years in the future]] | ||
{{w|Barnard's Star}} is a very-low-mass {{w|Red dwarf|red dwarf}} about 6 light-years away from Earth in the constellation of {{w|Ophiuchus}}. It is the fourth-nearest known individual star to the {{w|Sun}} after the three components of the Alpha Centauri system; it is the closest star to Earth in the Northern Hemisphere. It is a red dwarf with a mass of 0.144 Solar masses, a diameter one fifth that of the Sun, and it is 7β12 billion years old. Because of this low mass the gravitational pressure in the core is much lower and thus the fusion rate is far smaller than in the core of the Sun. In fact this star is so dim that, even though it's one of the nearest, it can't be seen by the naked eye. The low fusion rate also means that the lifespan of small stars is much longer. While huge stars might last a few hundred million years, and the Sun about 10 billion years, a small red dwarf has a lifespan of about a trillion years. | {{w|Barnard's Star}} is a very-low-mass {{w|Red dwarf|red dwarf}} about 6 light-years away from Earth in the constellation of {{w|Ophiuchus}}. It is the fourth-nearest known individual star to the {{w|Sun}} after the three components of the Alpha Centauri system; it is the closest star to Earth in the Northern Hemisphere. It is a red dwarf with a mass of 0.144 Solar masses, a diameter one fifth that of the Sun, and it is 7β12 billion years old. Because of this low mass the gravitational pressure in the core is much lower and thus the fusion rate is far smaller than in the core of the Sun. In fact this star is so dim that, even though it's one of the nearest, it can't be seen by the naked eye. The low fusion rate also means that the lifespan of small stars is much longer. While huge stars might last a few hundred million years, and the Sun about 10 billion years, a small red dwarf has a lifespan of about a trillion years. |