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  • Results from the Gaia satellite provide a new way to obtain a comprehensive assessment of local stellar populations, including, for example, a determination of how frequently nearby stars have orbiting stellar companions. The RECONS K Star (RKSTAR) Survey is attempting to answer this question by examining the multiplicity of more than 5000 systems with K dwarf primaries within 50 parsecs of our Solar System. Three surveys (Wide Field, Speckle, and Radial Velocity) will detect stellar and planetary companions to K dwarfs at separations of 0.1 to 1000 AU. This poster will detail the Wide Field portion using Gaia data releases to assemble a list of stellar companion candidates at separations larger than 1 arcsecond from their primary stars, and has revealed nearly 500 companions. These are then cross-referenced with the Washington Double Star Catalogue, the most comprehensive catalog of known multiple stars available, to confirm about 400 known companions and reveal that about 80 are new discoveries. Preliminary findings of this cross-catalogue comparison will be presented. This assessment of the nearest K dwarfs will be helpful in future exoplanet surveys and will serve to inform theories on stellar and planetary formation. This work has been supported by NSF grant AST-1909560.

Last update from database: 3/13/26, 4:15 PM (UTC)

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