The 28th closest star
In 2000, astronomers from IoA on the Canary Islands and the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope discovered a faint (apparent magnitude 17.39) star in the direction of Antlia. The star, named DENIS 1048-39, has been calculated to be 13.2 (0.1) light-years from Earth. The distance was calculated from parallax measurements with the 0.9 meter telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile. That makes it the 28th closest star to Earth.
Comments: The 28th closest star
The Museum of Science and Technology in Syracuse is currently hosting Alien Earths - a traveling exhibit created by ASTC and the Space Institute.
It details the Drake Equation and probability of life outside our solar system.
I've been offering interpretative talks to the public and recently pondered the following question.
Society on Earth has been broadcasting radio for approximately 100 years. If there is intelligent life in the galaxy, and they are listening to radio waves, approximately how many star systems would be included in the 100 light year sphere which our radio transmissions would now reach?
A number of web sites list the closest 25 stars which fall within 12 light years of Earth. If star density is equal, I estimate that the sphere of radius of 100 light years would include ~ 14,600 individual star systems, which is a very small % of the number in the Milky Way.
Does this estimate sound reasonable?
Posted by Peter Plumley on Friday 07th Jul 2006 (21:12 UTC)
Peter, short answer is that yes it does. I've written a long answer too.
Posted by Stuart on Saturday 08th Jul 2006 (00:09 UTC)