What is Barnard's star?
Barnard's star is the fourth closest star to the sun, after three members of the Centauri system and the fastest moving star in the sky. Sometimes it is called Barnard's escape star to refer to its significant movement due to other stars. Barnard's Star is located in the constellation Ophiuchus, just 5.98 light -years from the ground, still not visible for without help. This is because it is a red dwarf star with only 17% of the sun weight and 0.04% of so much luminosity. The red dwarves are so weak that we are aware of only those who were about 100 light years apart.
Barnard's star is currently moving in the general direction of our solar system about 140 km/s and becomes the nearest star next to the Sun in just about 11,700 years, at a distance of only 3.8 light years. Unfortunately, even then it will still be too weak to see with an unused eye. Even now the star is so weak that if it were to replace the sun, it would only have about 100 times the full moon. ExistsMany debates about whether a red dwarf could have planets habitable to live. The "habitable zone" for planets around the red dwarf would be similar to the distance to the mercury orbit. Barnard's star has only about 3000 k.
From 1963 to 1973, some astronomers believed that in orbit around Barnard's star was in orbit, based on minor movements of fluctuations allegedly observed in comparison of photographic plates. Unfortunately, for this group there were no attempts to verify fluctuations later. Many high -resolution observations with Hubble space telescope also excluded observable fluctuations. Barnard's star can still have a planetary companion of Earth's size, but certainly not Jupiter-size in any nearby orbit.
The proximity and possible planetary companion of Barnard's star caused it to be popularized at 60.years as a goal of interstellar probe. The British interplanetary company was created by a design for one probe called Daedalus. Such a probe would be extremely expensive and driven by nuclear pulses, although it would be achievable with the 1960s technology.