Epsilon Eridani: Already in the sights of asteroid miners

Dan Wild

Although known to early star gazers, Epsilon Eridani does not figure heavily in myth. Claudius Ptolemy was the first astronomer to pay this star any sustained attention, cataloguing it in his famous 2nd-century Almagest. Indeed, it was Ptolemy that named the constellation Eridanus, after the ancient Greek word for ‘river’ (Ποταμού). Epsilon Eridani famously entered …

Teegarden’s Star: A nearby red dwarf with two rocky planets

Dan Wild

While Teegarden’s Star is rarely talked about at dinner parties, it’s only a matter of time. Why? Two words. Habitable planets. At only 0.09 solar masses, Teegarden is a very small star. With less than 1/10th the mass of the sun, Teegarden is lucky to be a star at all – any less mass and …