Lecture 35: The Solar Neighborhood

What stars are near the Sun? Now that we have some idea of what we are looking for - rocky planets in the habitable zones of low-mass main-sequence stars - what are the prospects near the Sun? This lecture examines the hunting ground for planets, the nearby stars that make up the Solar Neighborhood. I will describe our nearest neighbor, the Proxima Centauri/Alpha Centauri triple system, and then look at the properties of our nearest stellar neighbors. What we will find is that G-type stars like the Sun are uncommon, only about 7% of all nearby main-sequence stars. Red dwarfs, on the other hand, are very common, about 75%. To find Sun-like main sequence stars, we will have to extend our search to larger distances into our Milky Way galaxy proper. Recorded live on 2009 Nov 16 in Room 1005 Smith Laboratory on the Columbus campus of The Ohio State University.