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It is the third closest star visible without a telescope. It is also known as

It has 85% of the Sun's mass, almost that much of its diameter, and 28% of its luminosity. It is 10.5 light years from Earth.

Its spectrum is extremely variable, with many emission lines. It has a very strong magnetic field. It spins about every 11 days. The reason for all this is the fact that it is very young; only about half a billion years old. It is for this reason why it is now considered unlikely to have intelligent life in its system. Tau CetiTau Ceti is a star commonly used by science fiction authors since it is similar to the Sun, being of similar mass and similar spectral type as well as being relatively close to us. However, Tau Ceti is a "metal-deficient" star and therefore extremely unli is a much better candidate. Both stars appear deficient in iron.

In 19881988 is a leap year starting on Friday (click on link for calendar). Events January January 2 Georgia celebrates its bicentennial statehood. January 9 Connecticut celebrates its bicentennial statehood. January 26 Australia celebrates its bicentennial day., a dust disk was discovered around the star. It is about the distance the Kuiper beltThe Kuiper belt ("KYE per") is an area of the solar system extending from within the orbit of Neptune (at 30 AU) to 50 AU from the sun, at inclinations consistent with the ecliptic. Origins The first astronomers to suggest the existence of this belt were is from our sun. There are clumps in the dust ring which may suggest that another planet orbits the star, causing the clumps through resonance. In 2000This page is about the year 2000. See 2000 AD for the UK comic book, Number 2000 for other uses. 2000 is a leap year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar), and also the International Year for a Culture of Peace''. Events Y2K passes without the seri a Jupiter-like planet was discovered (or confirmed) as being in orbit around the star. Its mean distance is 3.3 AU and its mass is estimated by the astronomer George Gatewood as 1.2 times the mass of Jupiter. Its orbit is highly elliptical. There may also be a second planet with about 3-5 times Jupiter's massMass is a property of physical objects that, roughly speaking, measures the amount of matter they contain. It is a central concept of classical mechanics and related subjects. Strictly speaking, there are two different quantities called mass Inertial mass orbiting in an elliptical orbitFor other meanings of the term "orbit", see orbit (disambiguation In physics, an orbit is the path that an object makes, around another object, whilst under the influence of a source of centripetal force, such as gravity. History Orbits were first analyse every 25 years or so. Close to the star, there is no evidence of the dust ring. This is consistent with currently accepted models of the inner solar system, and so there may be terrestrial planets here. Then again, Epsilon Eridani is very heavy-element poor. A planet orbiting Epsilon Eridani at a distance of around 0.53 astronomical unitThe astronomical unit AU is a unit of distance, approximately equal to the mean distance between Earth and Sun. The currently accepted value of the AU is 149,597,870,691+-30 metres (about 150 million kilometres or 93 million miles). Earth's orbit is not as would have temperatures suitable for liquid water.