Lalande 21185
Lalande 21185 is the closest system to Sol after Proxima Centauri, Alpha Centauri, Barnard's Star, and Wolf 359. Located in the constellation of Ursa Major, it is only 8.3 light years away, although due to its low apparent magnitude of 9, it’s invisible to the unaided eye.
The star is a red dwarf with a spectral luminously M2V and only contains about 40% of the mass of our own star. Lalande 21195 is also 46% of our sun’s diameter and is only six-tenths of a percent as bright. The star also has a lower metallicity then our own sun[1].
The star was first recorded by Joseph-Jérôme Lefrançais de Lalande in 1801 when he produced his catalog of some 47,390 stars in his Histoire Céleste Française, the largest star catalog of it’s day.
Planets
In 1996 an astronomical team reported detecting two possible planets orbiting Lalande 21185[2]. The closer of the two is estimated to exist some 2.2 AUs from its parent star and is 90% of Jupiter’s mass. The further possible planet may exist at the distance of 11 AUs and may be 1.6 times Jupiter’s mass. At this time neither world has been independently confirmed[3].
For an earth like world to have liquid water, such a world would have to be only some 0.22 AUs away, half the distance of Mercury and would complete its orbit in 56 days. Most likely such a world would be tidally locked to the star.
