Guided tour

What is actually near the Sun

A catalog-grounded look at the nearby stellar neighborhood and known planetary hosts.

Start this tour in the atlas

1. The Sun at the center

   This atlas uses heliocentric coordinates, so the Sun is the origin of the physical map.

2. The nearest measured stars

   Nearby stars are placed from catalog astrometry. Distance uncertainty and catalog selection still matter, even in the local neighborhood.

3. Positions move with time

   Where Gaia provides a complete proper-motion vector, the atlas propagates the reference-epoch position. This is modeled motion from measured astrometry, not a direct future observation.

4. Nearby known planetary hosts

   Proxima Centauri, the nearest known star to the Sun, is also a confirmed exoplanet host. The host view marks systems represented in the loaded catalogs and does not imply that unmarked nearby stars lack planets.