A SPECIAL POSITION FOR THE SUN?
The picture shows the distribution of stars within a 38 light-year radius of the Sun (which is at the centre). In order to show this in two dimensions each star was rotated onto the plane of the equator so as to keep its distance from the Sun and right-ascension correct. This gives a correct impression of distance distribution. The surprising and unexpected result was to see the large gap in the centre. To check this out other locations were chosen to see if there was a gap there too, but not so! Finally a full statistical test was made by dividing the whole three-dimensional volume into small cubes and counting the number of stars in each, and sure enough that with the Sun in it had the least. These results have been checked by professional astronomers.
The data was taken from a CD with the latest Hipparcos and Tycho star catalogues, obtained from Project Pluto.
The results were submitted to the Magazine Nature which declined to publish or discuss the matter.
Then Sky and Telescope was tried, but they declined to publish and showed in their reply that they had not studied the paper sufficiently to have understood what was in it.
NOTE: some comments received indicate that readers (including Nature) never got beyond the declination-suppression projection in thinking about the problem. The clincher is NOT that projection, which merely was (and is) suggestive, but the statistical analysis based on dividing the whole region into cubes or "buckets" and counting the number of stars in each. That eliminates any apparent distortion due to projection. P-L-E-A-S-E N-O-T-E !!!!
A copy of the paper submitted to Nature is available for downloading here: ftp/sun_gap.doc and the accompanying diagrams are in ftp/sun_gap.zip (five GIF pictures ZIPped into one file). In addition a greater resolution version (2368x2368 pixels) of the above picture is in ftp/sun_bw.gif.
Acknowledgements
Project Pluto CDROM "Guide 7" Nov 1998, containing the star catalogues used (email: pluto@projectpluto.com).