Research Consortium On Nearby Stars

The REsearch Consortium On Nearby Stars (RECONS) is an international group of astronomers founded in 1994 to investigate the stars nearest to the Solar System - with a focus on those within 10 parsecs (32.6 light years), but as of 2012 the horizon was stretched to 25 parsecs. In part the project hopes a more accurate survey of local star systems will give a better picture of the star systems in the Galaxy as a whole.

Notable discoveries

The Consortium claims authorship of the series The Solar Neighborhood in The Astronomical Journal, that began in 1994.<ref> Template:Cite journal </ref> This series now numbers nearly 40 papers and submissions. The following discoveries are from this series:

• GJ 1061 was discovered to be the 20th nearest known star system, at a distance of 11.9 light years.<ref>

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• The first accurate measurement of distance for DENIS 0255-4700 . At a distance of 16.2 light years, it is the nearest known class L brown dwarf object to the Solar System.<ref>

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• The discovery of 20 previously unknown star systems within 10 parsecs of the Solar System. These are in addition to 8 new star systems announced between 2000 and 2005.<ref>

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RECONS is listed explicitly as an author on papers submitted to the Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society since 2004.<ref> Template:Cite journal </ref>

The RECONS web page includes the frequently referenced "List of the 100 nearest star systems".<ref> Template:Cite web </ref> They update this list as discoveries are made. A list of all RECONS parallaxes<ref> Template:Cite web </ref> is available, as are all papers in the solar neighborhood series<ref> Template:Cite web </ref> and <ref> Template:Cite AV media </ref> which illustrates data from the RECONS 25 Parsec Database.

Members

Key astronomers involved in the project include

• Todd J. Henry (GSU) (consortium founder and director)
• Wei-Chun Jao (GSU)
• John Subasavage (USNO-Flagstaff)
• Charlie Finch (USNO-DC)
• Adric Riedel (Caltech)
• Sergio Dieterich (Carnegie)
• Jennifer Winters (H-S CfA)
• Phil Ianna (UVA).

See also

• List of astronomical societies
• List of nearest stars

External links

• Template:Cite web