Sol like stars

[All Seeing Eye]

I'm trying to find out the names and info for all (single star) Stars like our sun which are nearby, i'm wanting to see a list basically going from closest to furthest but the only stars I can find out about are 'Epsilon Eridani' and 'Tau Ceti', all other stars seem to be red dwarf stars or grouped together as binary star systems.

Can anyone help me?

So far I have:

Epsilon Eridani (10.522 LY away)
Tau Ceti (11.887 Ly away)

 

[Verteron]

The closest Sol-like star is Alpha Centauri A (4.5ly), which is slightly larger than the Sun, but the same spectral class, G2V.

Tau Ceti (12ly), Capella (42ly) and 51 Pegasi (50ly) are also G-type stars.

Epsilon Eridani is a class K star, although it has 84% of the Sun's mass, it's only 28% as bright, and the spectral output is much closer to the red end rather than the yellow/white end as Sol is.

It might help if you clarify exactly what you mean/want by "Sun-like" -- are you just looking for similar mass, brightness, temperature or similar lifespan and spectral class as well? Or just the presence of a potential "life zone" (which drastically widens your search parameters).

Try Wikipedia, although it only lists two G2V-type stars, which I've mentioned above.

I'll have a root around and see what else I can find out.

 

[All Seeing Eye]

The closest Sol-like star is Alpha Centauri A (4.5ly), which is slightly larger than the Sun, but the same spectral class, G2V.

Isnt that star a part of a trinary star system with Alpha Cent B and Prox Centauri??

I guess what i'm looking for are singular yellow stars similar in size and/or temperature to our own.
Maybe i'm being mega ignorant and there arnt stars like this, I dont know, which is why I was looking for some kind of list of similar stars.

Thanks for the info so far though! I realise now there are several categories by which stars can be different (such as spectral output), I never realised. As for the types such a G and K i'd best read up on the different classifications.

 

[Verteron]

The closest Sol-like star is Alpha Centauri A (4.5ly), which is slightly larger than the Sun, but the same spectral class, G2V.

Isnt that star a part of a trinary star system with Alpha Cent B and Prox Centauri??

Yes, it is, sorry you didn't specify in the post above you were only interested in single star systems. This reduces potential candidates a lot, since most stars are part of binary or larger multiple systems.

I'm interested to know why this is so -- Alpha Centauri A/B are quite distant from eachother, a planet orbiting A at a distance of 1AU (like Earth) would be stable and temperate, the closest approach of B is 11.2AU, which would appear to any folks living on a theoretical planet as an extremely bright point of light, but wouldn't really affect the development of Earth-like life on said planet, or future colonization.

I guess what i'm looking for are singular yellow stars similar in size and/or temperature to our own.
Maybe i'm being mega ignorant and there arnt stars like this, I dont know, which is why I was looking for some kind of list of similar stars.

Makes sense -- I've seen a similar list, will try and dig it up. The main problem is that there's an enourmous variability between stars depending on their age, mass, composition, and so on.

G2V-type stars will naturally have a habitable zone similar to our own, but other kinds of stable main sequence stars will have similar habitable zones closer in or further away which theoretical planets could orbit and support life.

 

[Darth Picardous]

Take a look at wikipedia at "List_of_stars_with_confirmed_extrasolar_planets" which will give a list of stars, many of which are G class stars as they are the spectral type many planetary discovery programs have been observing

 

[Verteron]

Take a look at wikipedia at "List_of_stars_with_confirmed_extrasolar_planets" which will give a list of stars, many of which are G class stars as they are the spectral type many planetary discovery programs have been observing

Direct Link to that list.

Good list -- it's just a shame those stars aren't so nicely named!

 

[Veiny Eyeball]

http://solstation.com is an excellent resource for this kind of stuff. They also go into some detail about the habitability and potential for life around various stars.

For example, although Tau Ceti is a single sun-like star, it is abound with cometary material. This means that any terrestrial planets that may have developed in the inner system would suffer a high frequency of bombardment, much higher than the Earth during its long history, making unlikely that advanced life would have had a chance to evolve.

 

[Daedalus12]

I'm interested to know why this is so -- Alpha Centauri A/B are quite distant from eachother, a planet orbiting A at a distance of 1AU (like Earth) would be stable and temperate, the closest approach of B is 11.2AU, which would appear to any folks living on a theoretical planet as an extremely bright point of light, but wouldn't really affect the development of Earth-like life on said planet, or future colonization.

The main concern was the gravitational effect of the additional star disrupting the formation of planets. However at least one Monte Carlo simulation has shown a precise result of the formation of a rocky planet around B within the habitable zone. Here is the paper.

This is a rather simplified simulation but yes both A and B could indeed have Earth like planets orbiting them. It would certainly be very exciting if it's true.

 

[captcalhoun]

Delta Pavonis is ~14-20 LY away and IIRC a single G-type star...

 

[James Bond]

Depending on who you ask, our own Sun might actually be a part of a binary star system

 

[Darth Picardous]

Depending on who you ask, our own Sun might actually be a part of a binary star system

The Nemesis theory would have to be dead. If we are picking up objects like Eris 100 AU from the sun at mag 19, there is no way we could be missing the parallax of an object like a red or brown dwarf which would be a lower magnitude due to its visible or thermal radiation output.

 

[PlixTixiplik]

Also, the 26-Myr periodicity of extinctions, that formed part of the basis of the "Nemesis" theory, no longer holds up with further radiometric dates and refinements to the timescale. Not to mention that the major mass extinctions (and several minor ones) have fairly well-understood terrestrial causes.

-MEC

 

[James Bond]

I don't necessarily believe the Nemesis theory, I'm just sort of on the fence about it. At the very least, it is interesting. Thanks for the info, guys.