Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics
Scientific paper
Sep 1999
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1999dda....31.0506i&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, DDA meeting #31, #05.06
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
Scientific paper
In the first quarter of this century a large proportion of astronomical research focused on working out distances and luminosities for stars in our neighborhood. As astrophysics developed the emphasis shifted outwards to the farthest reaches of the Milky Way and the galaxies beyond. Following a period of relative neglect, there is renewed interest in nearby stars in the wake of the discoveries of extrasolar jovian planets, and circumstellar and planetary debris disks. Future space missions will have unprecedented sensitivity to the detection of planets around nearby stars. In order to have the best possible target list for those missions, it is vital to fill gaps in our knowledge of the nearby stars and to identify as completely as possible those stars within 20 pc or so of the sun. Evidence suggests we may know less than half the stars in this sample! To remedy the situation NASA has initiated the NStars Project (D. Backman, Project Scientist; T. Henry, Deputy Project Scientst) within the Astrobiology Institute at Ames Research Center. The goal of NStars is to discover and characterize all stars within 20 pc and provide a web-accessible fully relational database (http://nstars.arc.nasa.gov) for all nearby stars.
Henry Todd J.
Ianna Philip A.
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