The Sun did not form by itself. It was created alongside thousands of other stars in a vast nebula which long ago dispersed, with all of the stars created inside scattering across the galaxy. It's been 4.5 billion years, these stars have had a long time to wander away, and detecting stars that formed within the same nebula as the Sun is a difficult task. You have to take into account the chemical composition and orbital trajectories over the past 4 billion years. Despite the difficulty, and despite the fact that this discovery happened much earlier than expected, astronomers have found our first solar sibling.
HD 162826 is 110 light years away, and it isn't a solar twin. Those are a bit different from solar siblings, as a solar twin is a star which is virtually identical to the Sun, while a solar sibling is a star which formed from the same nebula as the Sun. HD 162826 is a bit bigger then the Sun, but it has passed all the tests, it was formed from the same nebula at the same time as the Sun was. This discovery is honestly quite surprising. First off, we can only accurately determine if a star is a solar sibling if it is within 300 light-years currently, and astronomers put the odds of one being that close pretty low. So, it is honestly impressive that we were able to find this one star. It doesn't tell us much, until we can find more, HD 162826 is more of a curiosity, but it does prove that our Sun has siblings, and they are out there.
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