DX Cancri
DX Cancri is a red dwarf star in the northern zodiac constellation of Cancer. It is the 18th closest star to the Sun, at a distance of as determined by its parallax. It is also the nearest star in Cancer. Despite this, the star has less than 1% of the Sun's luminosity and, with an apparent visual magnitude of 14.81, is far too faint to be seen with the naked eye. Visually viewing this star requires a telescope with a minimum aperture of.
In 1981, Bjørn Ragnvald Pettersen discovered that the star, then called G 51-15, is a variable star. It was given its variable star designation, DX Cancri, in 1985. It is a flare star that has unpredictable, intermittent increases in brightness by up to a factor of five.
The star has a stellar classification of M6.5V, identifying it as a type of main sequence star known as a red dwarf. Such stars are characterized by their high abundance in the universe, low mass, radius, faint brightness and reddish color. It has about 10% of the mass of the Sun, and 12% of the Sun's radius. The outer envelope of the star has an effective temperature of 2,840 K.
It is a proposed member of the Castor Moving Group of stars that share a common trajectory through space. This group has an estimated age of 200 million years.