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The closest encounter to the Sun so far predicted is the low-mass orange dwarf star Gliese 710 / HIP 89825 with roughly 60% the mass of the Sun. [4] It is currently predicted to pass 0.1696 ± 0.0065 ly (10 635 ± 500 au) from the Sun in 1.290 ± 0.04 million years from the present, close enough to significantly disturb the Solar System's Oort ...
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
Proxima Centauri is the closest star to the Sun at 4.2465 light-years (1.3020 pc). α Centauri A and B are Sun-like stars (class G and K, respectively) that together form the binary star system α Centauri AB. To the naked eye, these two main components appear to be a single star with an apparent magnitude of −0.27 .
The amount of shift is quite small, even for the nearest stars, measuring 1 arcsecond for an object at 1 parsec's distance (3.26 light-years), and thereafter decreasing in angular amount as the distance increases. Astronomers usually express distances in units of parsecs (parallax arcseconds); light-years are used in popular media.
Prominent stars in the neighborhood of the Sun (center) This list of nearest bright stars is a table of stars found within 15 parsecs (48.9 light-years) of the nearest star, the Sun, that have an absolute magnitude of +8.5 or brighter, which is approximately comparable to a listing of stars more luminous than a red dwarf.
This is a list of star systems within 75–80 light years of Earth. The closest B-type star, Regulus , is in this list. This list is incomplete ; you can help by adding missing items .
The parsec (3.26 light-years) is defined as the distance for which the annual parallax is 1 arcsecond. Annual parallax is normally measured by observing the position of a star at different times of the year as Earth moves through its orbit. The angles involved in these calculations are very small and thus difficult to measure.
The parsec (symbol: pc) is a unit of length used to measure the large distances to astronomical objects outside the Solar System, approximately equal to 3.26 light-years or 206,265 astronomical units (AU), i.e. 30.9 trillion kilometres (19.2 trillion miles).