GJ 1061 c is a planet orbiting a small, dim star just 12.0 light-years from Earth. In the big picture of our galaxy, that makes it one of our closer cosmic neighbors. But “close” in space still means something almost impossible to picture without some help.
A Star at the Edge of Our Backyard
Our galaxy, the Milky Way, is roughly 100,000 light-years across. A light-year is the distance light travels in one year — about 9.5 trillion kilometers (or nearly 6 trillion miles). Most stars are thousands or tens of thousands of light-years away from us. Compared to that, GJ 1061 is practically next door at just 12.0 light-years.
To get a sense of where it sits, scientists have mapped the stars nearest to our Sun. GJ 1061 appears on those maps as one of the closest known stars to us. Only a handful of star systems are nearer. Our own nearest neighbor, the Alpha Centauri system, is about 4.2 light-years away. GJ 1061 is further than that, but still well within what astronomers sometimes call our “local neighborhood.” You can explore how it fits into the bigger picture on our Cosmic Map.
What 12 Light-Years Actually Means
Numbers like 12.0 light-years are easy to say and hard to feel. Let’s try to make it real.
Light is the fastest thing in the universe. It travels at about 300,000 kilometers per second. Even at that speed, light leaving GJ 1061 takes 12 full years to reach your eyes. That means when you look at GJ 1061 in the night sky, you are seeing it as it was 12 years ago. The star you observe is not the star as it is right now — it is a 12-year-old picture, frozen in time by the speed of light.
Here is another way to think about it. The distance from Earth to the Sun is about 150 million kilometers. Scientists call this one astronomical unit, or AU — a handy ruler for measuring distances inside our solar system. One light-year is equal to about 63,000 AU. So 12 light-years works out to roughly 760,000 AU. That is 760,000 times the distance from Earth to the Sun. The number is so large it stops feeling like a number at all.
How Long Would a Trip Take?
Imagine we could send a spacecraft to GJ 1061 c today. How long would the journey take?
The fastest spacecraft humans have ever launched is NASA’s Parker Solar Probe. At its peak speed, it travels at roughly 700,000 kilometers per hour. That sounds extraordinary. But even at that speed, reaching GJ 1061 would take around 18,000 years. No human crew could survive that kind of journey with any technology we have now.
What if we dream a little bigger? Some scientists have discussed future probes that might one day travel at a small fraction of the speed of light — perhaps one percent. Even then, the journey to GJ 1061 would take about 1,200 years. Reaching our closest neighbors is not just hard. By any current measure, it is far beyond our reach. You can play with these numbers yourself using our Distance and Travel Time tool.
Getting to Know GJ 1061 c
So what do we know about the planet waiting at the end of that impossible journey?
GJ 1061 c has a radius — that is the distance from its center to its surface — of 1.19 times Earth’s radius. It is a little wider than our planet, but not by a huge amount. Its mass is 1.81 times Earth’s mass, meaning it is noticeably heavier. Scientists use the word “super-Earth” for planets like this — worlds bigger and heavier than Earth, but much smaller than gas giants like Neptune.
One of the strangest things about GJ 1061 c is its year. On Earth, one year is about 365 days — the time it takes to travel once around the Sun. On GJ 1061 c, one full orbit takes just 6.68 Earth days. In less than a week, that world has already completed its year. This tells us the planet orbits very close to its star. Whether that means anything for what conditions might be like on the surface, scientists aren’t fully sure yet.
A Very Cool, Dim Star
GJ 1061 is what astronomers call a red dwarf — a type of star that is much smaller, cooler, and dimmer than our Sun. The surface temperature of GJ 1061 is 2,953 Kelvin. Kelvin is a temperature scale scientists use; for comparison, our Sun’s surface is around 5,778 Kelvin. GJ 1061 is barely half as hot as the Sun at its surface.
Because GJ 1061 is so cool and puts out so little energy, the zone around it where temperatures might allow liquid water on a planet’s surface sits very close to the star. Scientists call this the habitable zone. GJ 1061 c orbits very close to its star, and scientists are still working out whether it falls inside, outside, or right on the edge of that zone. We do not know whether GJ 1061 c has liquid water, an atmosphere, or anything else that might support life. Those are open questions.
How Scientists Found GJ 1061 c
GJ 1061 c was discovered in 2020 using a method called radial velocity. Here is how it works. When a planet orbits a star, its gravity gives the star a tiny tug. That tug makes the star wobble very slightly toward and away from us. As the star moves toward us, its light gets squished into slightly shorter wavelengths. As it moves away, the light stretches into longer wavelengths. Scientists can measure these tiny shifts and use them to work out the planet’s mass and how long its orbit takes. The method is very precise — it can detect wobbles smaller than a walking pace.
Radial velocity tells scientists about mass and orbit, but it does not directly measure a planet’s size. The radius of GJ 1061 c comes from other estimates and calculations.
A Busy Little System
GJ 1061 c is not alone. Scientists have found three planets in total orbiting GJ 1061. That makes it a multi-planet system — not unusual among red dwarf stars, which often turn out to host several worlds packed into tight orbits. The other planets in the system were also announced around the same time as GJ 1061 c, as part of the same research effort.
Studying all three planets together helps scientists understand how planets form and arrange themselves around small, cool stars. GJ 1061 is close enough that future telescopes may one day be able to study its planets in much more detail. For now, it remains a quiet, intriguing system sitting just 12 light-years away — close enough to study from afar, and too far to ever easily visit.