Space: Who Knew, #7

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The Closest Star

Proxima Centauri is the closest star to our own. Its designation is that of a Red Dwarf, and a flare star.

It lies in the southern constellation Centaurus at a distance of 4.2 light years. Do you remember from my my previous post on the structure of our galaxy, just how far light travels in a year? That would be 5,878,625,373,183.61 miles (or 5.8 trillion miles). Therefore, Proxima Centauri lies just over 24.6 trillion miles away.

The Alpha Centauri system is a triple star system, so Proxima Centauri isn't alone. Centauri A and Centauri B, both Yellow Dwarf's, are quite a bit larger than Proxima and make up the last two stars in the system. Check out this link to see an example of how a triple star system spins.

It's brightest star resembles our own, though it is farther away than Proxima Centauri. Heres a tidbit quoted from Proxima Centauri's wiki article:

"Searches for companions orbiting Proxima Centauri have been unsuccessful, although these attempts could only rule out the presence of large companions such as brown dwarfs and supermassive planets.^[15][16] The detection of smaller objects will require the use of new instruments, such as the proposed Space Interferometry Mission.^[17] Since Proxima Centauri is a red dwarf and a flare star, whether a planet orbiting this star could support life is disputed.^[18][19] Because of the star's proximity, it has been proposed as a destination for interstellar travel.^[20]"

And another quote from here:

"A and B are a physical binary star, with an eccentric orbit in which A and B can be as close as 11 AU or as far away as 36 AU. Proxima is much further away (~15,000 AU) from A and B than they are to each other. Although this distance is still small compared to other interstellar distances, it is debatable whether Proxima is gravitationally bound to A and B.^[12]"

Who knew???