Nearest Stars
This diagram illustrates the locations of the star systems that are closest to the Sun. The year when each star was discovered to be a neighbor of the Sun is indicated. The binary system WISE J104915.57-531906 is the third nearest system to the Sun, and the closest one found in a century.
The closest star system consists of Alpha Centauri, found to be a neighbor of the Sun in 1839 at 4.4 light years, and the fainter Proxima Centauri, discovered to be a neighbor in 1917 at 4.2 light years.
Proxima Centauri
The Nearest Star to the Sun is Proxima Centauri at just over 4 Light Years away and has one know planet in orbit around this Red dwarf Star (Proxima Centauri looks to be locked to the Binary Alpha Centauri star system. Proxima Centauri lies at a distance of 39,900,000,000,000 kilometres, or 271,000 astronomical units, or 4.22 light years. It is slightly closer to Earth than Alpha Centauri A and B, which are 4.35 light years away.
Barnard's star
Barnard's star was discovered 6.0 light years from the Sun in 1916.
Barnard's star is a low-mass 'red dwarf' star that is about 3% as bright as the Sun and is 5.98 light years away from us. That's about 35 trillion miles away just under six light-years away from Earth in the constellation of Ophiuchus, the Snake-holder. At magnitude 9.56, it is way too faint to be seen by human eyes. The human eye can see to about 6.0 magnitude. A magnitude 1.0 star is 2.5 times brighter than a magnitude 2.0 star, etc. So a magnitude 6.0 star is about 100 times fainter than magnitude 1 star. Our Sun is actually a -23 magnitude star, as seen from Earth.
Barnard's star is approaching our Sun, It has a blue shift as it is approaching at 87 miles per second. It will be less than four light years away in about 8,000 years. It has the highest proper motion of any star. Proper motion is the speed at which a star seems to move in respect to us. Barnard's star moves at 10.3 seconds of arc a year.
Barnard's Solar system
Barnard's star, has one confirmed "super-Earth" planet as its mass is thought to be around 3.2 times bigger than our own Earth and has an orbital year of 233 Earth days and lies 0.4 AU from its host star . It possibly is mostly a rocky planet with a massive atmosphere. It's probably very rich in volatiles like water, hydrogen, carbon dioxide that are most likely frozen on the surface.
There are also tentative hints of a second planet orbiting Barnard's Star even further out with a long period orbit making it more difficult to confirm.
WISE J104915.57-531906
binary "brown dwarfs"
This image is an artist's conception of the binary "brown dwarfs" system WISE J104915.57-531906 with the Sun in the background.
"brown dwarfs" are stars that are too small in mass to ever become hot enough to ignite hydrogen fusion. As a result, they are very cool and dim, resembling a giant planet like Jupiter more than a bright star like the Sun.
"The distance to this brown dwarf pair is 6.5 light years
WISE J104915.57-531906 is at the center of the larger image, which was taken by the WISE satellite. It appeared to be a single object, but a sharper image from Gemini Observatory revealed that it was binary star system.
about room temperature.
WISE 0855-0714
Brown dwarf 7.2 light years
Temperature between minus 54 and 9 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 48 to minus 13 degrees Celsius).
estimated to be 3 to 10 times the mass of Jupiter