Teegarden's Star

Teegarden's Star

no aliases - UAS - Teegarden's Star

Dim red dwarf 11.1 LY from SOL and part of the SOL Core  neighborhood.

Upward Sector, M-0 Galaxy , Union System - Former United Earth system.

It was discovered for Earth before the Ascent in 2003 and named after one of the Earth astronomers Bonnard J. Teegarden. It was first physicaly surveyed by a joint United Earth - Saran expedition after the Ascent around 2119 OTT.

The dim red dwarf has no planets, no significant dust or asteroid belts.

The system recieved an automated GalNet repeater station in 2189 OTT and a navigation beacon in 2190 OTT.

In 2193, a private company discovered a planetoid orbiting the star. It became know as Teegarden's Boulder and has been develoed into a fuel stop,  freighter stop over with maintenance and repair facilities.

It has never developed into a popular destination like some of the other freighter stops near Sol but in 4002, an enteprener bought the Boulder (from the Teegarden Boulder development Association) and placed the headquaters of India Tea Inc on Teegarden Boulder, built the now famous Teas of the Universe museum there, along with a botanical garden (for teas) and a Tea distribution company.

The museum featuring not only teas but tea related utensils and preparation methods. The Tea Zen retreat hotel is an exclusive destination for relaxation and anti stress treatments.

Approximatley 500,000 to a million visitors come to Teegarden's Boulder annually either to visit several of the very exclusive restaurants and themed hotels or to partake in seminars and tea related festivities (such as the Tea ceremony seminar, the Tea Lovers festival, the Saresii Tea brewing competition etc)

Pre Astro Info
February 2003, a team of astronomers (including Bonnard J. Teegarden, Steven H. Pravdo, Michael Hicks, Stuart B. Shaklan, Kevin Covey, Oliver Fraser, Suzanne L. Hawley, Thomas A. McGlynn, and I. Neill Reid) announced the discovery of a nearby star using data collected by the NASA-funded, Near Earth Asteroid Tracking (NEAT) program from November 26, 1997 to August 11, 2001, during a search of nearby white dwarfs. Designated SO025300.5+165258, the star has a very large proper motion of 5.06 +/- 0.03 arcseconds per year (Teegarden et al, 2003), which was detected in SkyMorph's database of NEAT observations that astronomers have found to be useful for finding stars with high proper motions (Pravdo et al, 1999). Some astronomers have begun referring to SO 025300.5+165258 as "Teegarden's Star," after its discoverer Bonnard J. Teegarden. Astronomers currently know of only six other stars with proper motions greater than five arcsecconds per year, from the perspective of an observer in the Solar System.

The star was initially thought to be located only around 7.6 (+ 3.3 / -1.8) light-years (ly) away from Sol, based on a preliminary trigonometric parallax of 0.43 +/- 0.13 arcseconds (") or 2.3 +1.0 / -0.54 parsecs. Its unusual dimness and relative metal abundance indicated, however, that the star was probably further away, perhaps around 11.7 ly or more based on an inferred, spectrophotometric parallax of 3.6 +/- 0.4" -- see discussion below and at RECONS). According to Sky and Telescope (April 2004), Todd J. Henry, the director of RECONS, reported a recent distance estimate of 3.82 parsecs (or 12.5 ly). In June 2004, George Gatewood, the director of the Allegheny Observatory, also reported a similar, initial parallax estimate of 0.259 +/- 0.004 arcseconds (AAS 204th Meeting session abstract), for a distance of 3.86 +/- 0.06 parsecs (12.6 +/- 0.2 ly), a distance modulus of 2.067+/- 0.034 magnitudes, and an absolute visual magnitude of 17.47 +/- 0.04 (A.O. summary) -- "in excellent agreement with those of the U.S Naval Observatory (Conrad Dahn, private communications)." In 2006, a new estimate of 12.52 +/- 0.13 ly was reported by RECONS (Henry et al, 2006b; and (Henry et al, 2006a), but a revised estimate of 12.59 light-years (based on 0.2593 arc-seconds was reported in 2009 (Gatewood and Coban, 2009)

Teegarden's Star is located in the southwest corner (2:55:10.6+16:17:1, J2000; or 2:53:0.5+16:52:58, ICRS) of Constellation Aries, the Ram. It can be found southeast of Hamal (Alpha Arietis), Sheratan (Beta Arietis), Mesarthim (Gamma Arietis), and spiral galaxy M 74; northeast of Alrescha (Alpha Piscium); and northwest of Lamda, Mu, Xi2, and Nu Ceti, and Menkar (Alpha Ceti) and Kaffaljidhma (Gamma Ceti). If the initial distance estimate had been confirmed, the star would have become the new third-closest system to Sol after Alpha Centauri 3 and Barnard's Star. Like all red dwarf stars, however, Teegarden's Star is too faint to be seen with the unaided Human eyes from Earth.

Initial measurements of the spectrum of Teegarden's Star and its tangential velocity (of 52.9 +/- 11.7 kilometers per second) suggest it is a main-sequence dwarf star of spectral and luminosity type M6.5-7.0 V. Such a cool red dwarf star is substantially smaller and dimmer than Sol, currently estimated to have only around eight percent of Sol's mass, around one-seventh of its diameter, and 1/300,000th of its visual luminosity. If the preliminary distance measurement had been correct, then the star would be underluminous by a magnitude of 1.2 +/- 0.7 (three times dimmer than similar stars of its type), although the relative strengths of the star's spectral bands of Calcium Hydride (CaH2) and Titanium Oxide (TiO5) provide no evidence that it is metal-poor.

The star's relative distance to Sol has been revised as initial estimates of magnitude and distance indicated that the star had an unreasonably small diameter of 68 percent of Jupiter. Subsequent measurements of magnitude and metallicity suggested that the star is actuallyed located around 11.7 ly away, based on an inferred, spectrophotometric parallax of 3.6 +/- 0.4 arcseconds (Teegarden et al, 2003) -- more discussion at RECONS. A more precise measurement of the star position to improve the determination of its trigonometric parallax distance was launched by the U.S. Naval Observatory. In June 2004, George Gatewood (Director of the Allegheny Observatory) also reported a similar, initial parallax estimate of 0.259 +/- 0.004 arcseconds (AAS 204th Meeting session summary), for a distance of 3.86 +/- 0.06 parsecs (12.6 +/- 0.2 ly), a distance modulus of 2.067+/- 0.034 magnitudes, and an absolute visual magnitude of 17.47 +/- 0.04 (A.O. abstract) -- "in excellent agreement with those of the U.S Naval Observatory (Conrad Dahn, private communications." Useful catalogue numbers for this star include: SO025300.5+165258, SO25300.5+165258, SO J025300.5+165258, 2MASS J02530084+1652532, APM EO0425-0315372, LSPM J0253+1652, and USNO-B1.0 1068-00028941 or USNO-A2.0 1050-00774305.