Star
Kapteyn's Star
Kapteyn's Star is a red star 12.8 light-years away, one of the nearest there are, seen as it was 13 years ago, shining at 0.400% of the Sun’s brightness.
The nearest halo star: about 11 billion years old, going round the galaxy the wrong way. It may once have belonged to Omega Centauri.
See it live
It is on the live 3D map, where it really is.
Key facts
- Distance
- 12.8 light-years
- Brightness from Earth
- magnitude 8.86
- Spectral type
- M0V
- Catalogue
- HIP 24186
See it from here
Too faint for the eye; a telescope, or a long photograph, shows it.
How the map draws it
Drawn as a point of light, sized by how bright it looks from where you are — the kind of thing, not this exact one.