LHS 1565 / GJ 1061

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NASA -- larger image

LHS 1565 is a dim red dwarf star, like Gliese 623 A (M2.5V)
and B (M5.8Ve) at lower right. (A 2MASS Survey image of
LHS 1565 may become available from the NASA Star and
Exoplanet Database.)

System Summary

This star is located only about 12.0 +/- 0.1 light-years (ly) from our Sun (Henry et al, 2006), Sol, in the northeastern corner (03:35:57-44:30.4:D~, ICRS 2000.0) of Constellation Horologium, the Pendulum Clock -- southwest of Alpha and Delta Horologii. The star was probably discovered by Willem Jacob Luyten (1899-1994), who found the proper motions of over 520,000 stars despite the loss of sight in one eye since 1925 by building an automated photographic plate scanner and measuring machine. Being much smaller and cooler than Sol, LHS 1565 is not visible to the naked eye. In 1997, the Research Consortium on Nearby Stars (RECONS) dramatically revised the location of LHS 1565, finding that it was only 11.9 ly away (Henry et al, 1997).

The Star

This main sequence, red dwarf (M5.5 V) is a near twin to Proxima Centauri. The star has an estimated mass of 0.113 Solar (RECONS), probably only around 14.5 percent of Sol's diameter like Proxima Centauri, and a visual luminosity lower than 0.00007 of Sol's. Over a decade of observations suggests that LHS 1565 lacks a stellar or large unseen, substellar companion in orbit between one and 10 times the Earth-Sun distance -- astronomical unit or AU (Bartlett et al, 2009; and Leinert et al, 1997). Some other useful star catalogue numbers for the star are: GJ 1061, LTT 1702, LP 995-56, LFT 295, L 372-58m, and RECONS 1.

Jeffrey L. Linsky, JILA, STScI, NASA

Larger image.

Like Gliese 752 B, LHS 1565 is so small,
with less than 20 percent of Sol's mass,
that it can transport core heat only through
convection, unlike larger larger red dwarf
stars like Gliese 752 A (more).

Habitable Zone

With a spectral type of M5.5, Proxima Centauri can be used as a rough proxy for LHS 1565 (M5.5). Accounting for infrared radiation, the distance from Proxima where an Earth-type planet could have liquid water on its surface is around 0.022 to 0.054 AU (Endl and Kürster, 2008; and Endl et al, 2003, in pdf) -- much closer than Mercury's orbital distance of about 0.4 AU from Sol -- with a corresponding orbital period of 3.6 to 13.8 days (Endl and Kürster, 2008), while the NASA Star and Exoplanet Database has calculated a slightly farther out habitable zone between 0.033 and 0.064 AUs around Proxima. In any case, the rotation of such a planet would probably be tidally locked so that one side would be in perpetual daylight and the other in darkness.

Closest Neighbors

The following star systems are located within 10 ly of LHS 1565.

------------------------------------- [Guide] -- [Full Near Star Map] -------------------------------------

Star System	Spectra & Luminosity	Distance (light-years)
Kapteyn's Star	M0-1.5 VI	3.7
(LP 944-20)	brown dwarf	4.9
Epsilon Eridani	K2 V	6.9
Luyten 726-8	M5.6 Ve	7.1
Hip 15689	?	7.5
Tau Ceti	G8 Vp	7.6
82 Eridani 2	G5-8 V-IV ?	7.9
YZ Ceti	M4.5 Ve	8.4
Sirius 2	A0-1 Vm DA2-5/VII	8.9
Cincinnati	M2-4 V	9.6
Lacaille 9352	M0.5 Ve	9.8

Other Information

Up-to-date technical summaries on this star can be found at: the Astronomiches Rechen-Institut at Heidelberg's ARICNS, the NASA Star and Exoplanet Database, and the Research Consortium on Nearby Stars (RECONS) list of the 100 Nearest Star Systems. Additional information may be available at Roger Wilcox's Internet Stellar Database.

Constellation Horologium, the Pendulum Clock, is one of those obscure constellations in the Southern Hemisphere invented in the mid-1880s by the Abbé [Abbot] Nicholas Louis de La Caille (1713-1762), who had the great honor of naming 15 of the 88 constellations by becoming the first astronomer to systematically observe the entire night sky. For more information about the stars and objects in this constellation, go to Christine Kronberg's Horologium. For an illustration, see David Haworth's Horologium.

For more information about stars including spectral and luminosity class codes, go to ChView's webpage on The Stars of the Milky Way.