Wolf 359 is a star, a red dwarf, 7.8 light years from Earth. This is close by; in fact Wolf 359 is the third closest star system to our own sun. Only the Alpha Centauri triple system ( Alpha A, Alpha B & Proxima ) and Barnard's star are known to be closer. Wolf 359 can be found in the southern region of the constellation Leo near the ecliptic. With a visual magnitude of just 13.45 however, Wolf 359 is invisible to the naked eye.

Wolf 359 was discovered by German astrophysicist Max Wolf in 1917 and published in his 1919 catalog of high proper motion stars.

Max was a pioneer of astrophotography who discovered thousands of heavenly bodies. While most of his discoveries are nebulae his catalog also includes variable stars, asteroids and more than 1500 high proper motion stars which tend to be close by like Wolf 359.

With a Ph.D. from the University of Heidelberg where he later served as professor of astrophysics he studied the night skies from the Königstuhl Observatory which he founded.

Max also developed both the "dry plate" and the "blink comparator" to aid his photographic search of the Milky Way.

 

Alternate Name: Gl 406, G 45-20, LHS 36
Position (J2000.0): 10H 56M 33.29S +07D 01' 38.1"
RA Proper Motion: -0.257 sec time/yr
DEC Proper Motion: -2.720 sec arc/yr

Parallax: 0.425
Distance (pc): 2.39
Distance (lyr): 7.78

Spectral Type: M6 V
Visual Magnitude: 13.45
Color Index (B-V): 2.03
Infrared Colors (Leggett 1992, Ap.J.Supp.Ser., 82, 351)

	V      R      I     J     H     K
	------------------------------------
	13.45  11.53  9.39  7.06  6.44  6.08

 

Wolf 359 (FOS)
       Faint Object Spectrograph (FOS) of Wolf 359 - HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE (HST) 1997

 

Wolf 359 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Maximilian Franz Joseph Cornelius Wolf (June 21, 1863 - October 3, 1932)
Star Trek's Battle of Wolf 359

 

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