Our Sun has a near-identical twin about 46 light-years away

Our Sun has a twin: 18 Scorpii, a star about 46 light-years away in Scorpius that matches the Sun in age, mass, size, and surface temperature, with brightness changes almost identical to the Sun’s. It is a solar twin, meaning a star with very similar temperature, surface gravity, and composition, not necessarily one born in the same cluster. In March 2026, astronomers using Gaia data cataloged 6,594 solar twins within about 1,000 light-years, many aged 4 to 6 billion years like the Sun, which suggests the Sun may have migrated outward from near the galaxy’s center with many of them. Studying twins helps astronomers see whether the Sun is a typical star. Credit: Tokyo Metropolitan University and the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ), 2026; Villanova University via NBC News; Lowell Observatory and Tennessee State University via SpaceNews