According to the article announcing its discovery, at only 7.50 light years, HPMS is the third star in order of distance from the Sun, ranking between Barnard's Star and Wolf 359.
The star appears to be a red dwarf, a class of low temperature and low luminosity stars. This would explain why it was not discovered earlier, since it has an apparent magnitude of only 18 (but an absolute magnitude of 10.6).
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