What Lies Beyond the Solar System?

Compared to gigantic galaxies and star clusters, the Solar System is no more than just a speck of dust. There are thousands of stars within the radius of 100 light years from it. With some of them barely distinguishable against the dark abyss of space, others are so bright that they can be seen even if they are in other galaxies. Besides, there are a lot of invisible objects lurking in the depths of space, too – from massive brown dwarves to rocky exoplanets comparable to our Earth in size. Some of them may harbour life while others may pose a threat.

However, all this diversity is eclipsed by the scale of our galaxy. There are 200 billion stars and over a trillion planets at the very least to be found across its expanses. It is quite impossible to completely explore this great abundance of unique space objects. Today we will talk about some of the closest ones.