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Star density maps of the Gaia Catalogue of Nearby Stars.The Sun is located at the centre of both maps. The regions with higher density of stars are shown; these correspond with known star clusters (Hyades and Coma Berenices) and moving groups. This is a list of nearby stellar associations and moving groups.
The closest encounter to the Sun so far predicted is the low-mass orange dwarf star Gliese 710 / HIP 89825 with roughly 60% the mass of the Sun. [4] It is currently predicted to pass 0.1696 ± 0.0065 ly (10 635 ± 500 au) from the Sun in 1.290 ± 0.04 million years from the present, close enough to significantly disturb the Solar System's Oort ...
The Ursa Major Moving Group is one example of a stellar association. (Except for α Ursae Majoris and η Ursae Majoris, all the stars in the Plough/Big Dipper are part of that group.) Other young moving groups include: Local Association (Pleiades moving group) Hyades Stream; IC 2391 supercluster; Beta Pictoris moving group; Castor moving group
One possibility is that these stars were much larger than current stars: several hundred solar masses, and possibly up to 1,000 solar masses. Such stars would be very short-lived and last only 2–5 million years. [32] Such large stars may have been possible due to the lack of heavy elements and a much warmer interstellar medium from the Big Bang.
Thus, the Sun occupies 0.00001% (1 part in 10 7) of the volume of a sphere with a radius the size of Earth's orbit, whereas Earth's volume is roughly 1 millionth (10 −6) that of the Sun. Jupiter, the largest planet, is 5.2 AU from the Sun and has a radius of 71,000 km (0.00047 AU; 44,000 mi), whereas the most distant planet, Neptune, is 30 AU ...
Yet a few rare blue stars exist in globulars, thought to be formed by stellar mergers in their dense inner regions; these stars are known as blue stragglers. In the Milky Way galaxy, globular clusters are distributed roughly spherically in the galactic halo , around the Galactic Center , orbiting the center in highly elliptical orbits .
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Below there are lists the nearest stars separated by spectral type. The scope of the list is still restricted to the main sequence spectral types: M, K, F, G, A, B and O. It may be later expanded to other types, such as S, D or C. The Alpha Centauri star system is the closest star system to the Sun.