Lalande 21185

Lalande 21185

At 8.3 lightyears from Sol in the constellation Ursa Major, this star is the fourth closest to our sun after Alpha Centauri, Barnard's Star, and Wolf 359. A dim red dwarf, it is too faint to be seen from Earth without a telescope.

The star is suspected to have three planets of roughly Jupiter mass, orbiting beyond the habitable zone, but these are unconfirmed.

Fiction

In The Chara Talisman the starship Sophie makes a refuelling stop in this system on its way back from Chara. In the book, the star also has a smaller gas planet (something like Neptune) in very close or "torch" orbit, which gives it a comet-like tail spiraling around the star. The Sophie lands on a smaller, predominantly ice planet beyond this, which they informally name "Dirty Snowball".

Nearby Stars

Interesting nearby stars include:

Star		Type 		Dist ly
Wolf 359 	M5.8 Ve 	4.1
Ross 128 	M4.1-5 Ve 	6.5
Sol 		G2 V	 	8.3
Procyon 	F5 V-IV		9.6