Proxima Centauri, closest star to our sun. The star Proxima Centauri isn’t visible to the eye, but it’s one of the most noted stars in the sky. That’s because it’s part of the Alpha Centauri star system, home to three known stars and the closest stellar system to our sun. Of the three stars in Alpha Centauri, scientists believe Proxima is closest to our sun, at 4.22 light-years away. Astronomers have discovered two planets for Proxima so far. It also has massive solar flares and might even be the source of a mysterious radio signal.
‘Usually, when stars are so close to Earth, they appear bright in our sky. Consider the star Sirius, for example, in the constellation Canis Major. Sirius is the brightest star in Earth’s sky, at just 8.6 light-years away. So why isn’t Proxima Centauri, at 4.22 light years away, even brighter? Instead of being bright, Proxima isn’t visible at all the the eye alone.
And the reason is that Proxima Centauri is so small. It’s what’s called a red dwarf star, one of the most common sorts of stars in our Milky Way galaxy. It contains only about an eighth of our sun’s mass. Faint red Proxima Centauri is only 3,100 Kelvin (5,100 degrees F or 2,800 C) in contrast to 5,778 K for our sun. So Proxima is 500 times less bright than our sun.
Credit : Earthsky
Picture Credit : Google
