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Solar Siblings Hint at Our Sun's Turbulent Youth

The sun's sister stars may be far more numerous than scientists had previously thought.

By Bruce Dorminey
Dec 11, 2013 4:47 PMNov 12, 2019 5:41 AM
tarantula-nebula.jpg
Did the sun come from a crowded star-forming region, similar to the Large Magellanic Cloud's Tarantula Nebula? | NASA/ESA/ESO/D. Lennon (ESA/STSCI), et al./The Hubble Heritage Team (STSCI/AURA)

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Astronomers have long sought out the sun’s “siblings,” stars born from the same cloud of gas and dust, because of the clues they’d provide regarding the sun's origins. For years, the prevailing wisdom suggested that the sun was born in a sparsely populated “suburban” star-forming region about 5 billion years ago, along with roughly 3,000 other stars. 

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