What is Barnards Star?
Barnard’s star is the fourth closest star to the Sun, after the three members of the Centauri system, and the fastest moving star in the sky. It is sometimes called Barnard’s Runaway Star to refer to its significant motion relative to other stars. Located in the constellation Ophiuchus, only 5.98 light years from the Earth, Barnard’s Star is still not visible to the unaided eye. This is because it is a red dwarf star with only 17% the mass of the Sun and .04% as much luminosity. Red dwarfs are so faint that we are only aware of those within about 100 light years of ourselves. Barnard’s Star is currently moving in the general direction of our solar system at about 140 km/sec, and will become the nearest star besides the Sun in only about 11,700 years, at a distance of only 3.8 light years. Unfortunately, even then it will still be too dim to see with the unaided eye. Even now, the star is so faint that if it were to replace the Sun, it would have only about 100 times the luminosity of a
