One of the outcomes of our thinking about the sun growing up or being born in a neighborhood
and then growing up with a bunch of other stars is that we actually have stellar siblings. Those
stellar siblings have left the nest, this cluster in which we formed and have gone out, and we
think that right now we have stellar siblings that are spread throughout the galaxy. The stars that
are formed in clusters ultimately dissolve into the background of stars within the galaxy. But if we
look out, we can actually see individual stars out there that have basically the same pattern of
chemical enrichment as the sun, and we think that those were the stars that we were formed
with. We can never know because we'd have to unwind billions of years of going around the
center of the galaxy and map it back and make sure we're at the same place, and that's
something we really can't understand from the dynamics of the stars around us. But the
signature does point to every now and then we can look out and we pass one of the siblings
stars near which we were born.
and then growing up with a bunch of other stars is that we actually have stellar siblings. Those
stellar siblings have left the nest, this cluster in which we formed and have gone out, and we
think that right now we have stellar siblings that are spread throughout the galaxy. The stars that
are formed in clusters ultimately dissolve into the background of stars within the galaxy. But if we
look out, we can actually see individual stars out there that have basically the same pattern of
chemical enrichment as the sun, and we think that those were the stars that we were formed
with. We can never know because we'd have to unwind billions of years of going around the
center of the galaxy and map it back and make sure we're at the same place, and that's
something we really can't understand from the dynamics of the stars around us. But the
signature does point to every now and then we can look out and we pass one of the siblings
stars near which we were born.
