Nearest Star
The characteristic nearest star can refer to both stars: *Proxima Centauri, in relation to the Solar System *Sun, in relation to Earth and humanity See also * List of nearest stars * List of most distant stars * Astronomy Astronomy () is a natural science that studies astronomical object, celestial objects and phenomena. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and chronology of the Universe, evolution. Objects of interest ...

Star
A star is an astronomical object comprising a luminous spheroid of plasma held together by its gravity. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Many other stars are visible to the naked eye at night, but their immense distances from Earth make them appear as fixed points of light. The most prominent stars have been categorised into constellations and asterisms, and many of the brightest stars have proper names. Astronomers have assembled star catalogues that identify the known stars and provide standardized stellar designations. The observable universe contains an estimated to stars. Only about 4,000 of these stars are visible to the naked eye, all within the Milky Way galaxy. A star's life begins with the gravitational collapse of a gaseous nebula of material composed primarily of hydrogen, along with helium and trace amounts of heavier elements. Its total mass is the main factor determining its evolution and eventual fate. A star shines for most of its active life due t ...
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Proxima Centauri
Proxima Centauri is a small, low-mass star located away from the Sun in the southern constellation of Centaurus. Its Latin name means the 'nearest tarof Centaurus'. It was discovered in 1915 by Robert Innes and is the nearest-known star to the Sun. With a quiescent apparent magnitude of 11.13, it is too faint to be seen with the unaided eye. Proxima Centauri is a member of the Alpha Centauri star system, being identified as component Alpha Centauri C, and is 2.18° to the southwest of the Alpha Centauri AB pair. It is currently from AB, which it orbits with a period of about 550,000 years. Proxima Centauri is a red dwarf star with a mass about 12.5% of the Sun's mass (), and average density about 33 times that of the Sun. Because of Proxima Centauri's proximity to Earth, its angular diameter can be measured directly. Its actual diameter is about one-seventh (14%) the diameter of the Sun. Although it has a very low average luminosity ...
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List Of Nearest Stars
This list covers all known stars, brown dwarfs, and sub-brown dwarfs within of the Sun. So far, 131 such objects have been found, of which only 22 are bright enough to be visible without a telescope. The visible light needs to reach or exceed the dimmest brightness to be visible to the naked eye from Earth, 6.5 apparent magnitude. The known 131 objects are bound in 94 stellar systems. Of those, 103 are main sequence stars: 80 red dwarfs and 23 "typical" stars having greater mass. Additionally, astronomers have found 6 white dwarfs (stars that have exhausted all fusible hydrogen), 20 brown dwarfs, as well as 2 sub-brown dwarfs: WISE 0855−0714 (probably a rogue planet) and WISE 1741+2553. The closest system is Alpha Centauri, with Proxima Centauri as the closest star in that system, at 4.2465 light-years from Earth. The brightest, most massive and most luminous object among those 131 is Sirius A, which is also the brightest object in Earth's night sky; its white dwarf c ...
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