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Size comparison of Sirius B and Earth. Sirius B, also known as the Pup Star, is one of the most massive white dwarfs known. With a mass of 1.02 M ☉, it is almost double the 0.5–0.6 M ☉ average. This mass is packed into a volume roughly equal to the Earth's. [56]
The closest system is Alpha Centauri, with Proxima Centauri as the closest star in that system, at 4.2465 light-years from Earth. The brightest, most massive and most luminous object among those 131 is Sirius A , which is also the brightest star in Earth's night sky ; its white dwarf companion Sirius B is the hottest object among them.
Sirius B, which is a white dwarf, can be seen as a faint point of light to the lower left of the much brighter Sirius A. A white dwarf is a stellar core remnant composed mostly of electron-degenerate matter. A white dwarf is very dense: in an Earth sized volume, it packs a mass that is comparable to the Sun.
Many trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) have been discovered; in many cases their positions in this list are approximate, as there is frequently a large uncertainty in their estimated diameters due to their distance from Earth. Solar System objects more massive than 10 21 kilograms are known or expected to be approximately spherical.
Its name comes from the Greek word for "scorching" or "searing". Sirius is also a binary star; its companion Sirius B is a white dwarf with a magnitude of 8.4–10,000 times fainter than Sirius A to observers on Earth. [32] The two orbit each other every 50 years. Their closest approach last occurred in 1993 and they will be at their greatest ...
With a surface temperature of 7740 K, it is also much cooler than Sirius B; this is a testament to its lesser mass and greater age. The mass of the progenitor star for Procyon B was about 2.59 +0.22 −0.18 M ☉ and it came to the end of its life some 1.19 ± 0.11 billion years ago, after a main-sequence lifetime of 680 ± 170 million years.
Below there are lists the nearest stars separated by spectral type.The scope of the list is still restricted to the main sequence spectral types: M, K, F, G, A, B and O.It may be later expanded to other types, such as S, D or C.
An artist's impression of Sirius A and Sirius B, a binary star system. Sirius A, an A-type main-sequence star, is the larger of the two. An A-type main-sequence star (A V) or A dwarf star is a main-sequence (hydrogen burning) star of spectral type A and luminosity class V (five). These stars have spectra defined by strong hydrogen Balmer ...