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Distances of the nearest stars from 20,000 years ago until 80,000 years in the future Visualisation of the orbit of the Sun (yellow dot and white curve) around the Galactic Centre (GC) in the last galactic year. The red dots correspond to the positions of the stars studied by the European Southern Observatory in a monitoring programme. [71]
Proxima Centauri is the nearest star to Earth after the Sun, located 4.25 light-years away in the southern constellation of Centaurus. This object was discovered in 1915 by Robert Innes. It is a small, low-mass star, too faint to be seen with the naked eye, with an apparent magnitude of 11.13. Its Latin name
Though not visible to the naked eye, Proxima Centauri is the closest star to the Sun at a distance of 4.24 ly (1.30 pc), slightly closer than α Centauri AB. Currently, the distance between Proxima Centauri and α Centauri AB is about 13,000 AU (0.21 ly), [17] equivalent to about 430 times the radius of Neptune's orbit.
Below there are lists the nearest stars separated by spectral type. The scope of the list is still restricted to the main sequence spectral types: M, K, F, G, A, B and O. It may be later expanded to other types, such as S, D or C. The Alpha Centauri star system is the closest star system to the Sun.
Proxima Centauri b is the closest exoplanet to Earth, [19] at a distance of about 4.2 ly (1.3 parsecs). [4] It orbits Proxima Centauri every 11.186 Earth days at a distance of about 0.049 AU, [1] over 20 times closer to Proxima Centauri than Earth is to the Sun. [20] As of 2021, it is unclear whether it has an eccentricity [e] [23] but Proxima Centauri b is unlikely to have any obliquity. [24]
Barnard's Star is a small red dwarf star in the constellation of Ophiuchus.At a distance of 5.96 light-years (1.83 pc) from Earth, it is the fourth-nearest-known individual star to the Sun after the three components of the Alpha Centauri system, and is the closest star in the northern celestial hemisphere. [15]
The regions with higher density of stars are shown; these correspond with known star clusters (Hyades and Coma Berenices) and moving groups. This is a list of nearby stellar associations and moving groups. A stellar association is a very loose star cluster, looser than an open cluster. A moving group is the remnant of such a stellar association ...
This number is wrong; originally announced in 1891, the figure was corrected in 1910 to 40 ly (60 mas). From 1891 to 1910, it had been thought this was the star with the smallest known parallax, hence the most distant star whose distance was known. Prior to 1891, Arcturus had previously been recorded of having a parallax of 127 mas.