Question

How far is the closest star?

Answer 1

Hint : The closest star to us is the Proxima Centauri. The sun can also be said as our nearest neighbor as it is $93$million miles away but apart from that we have a triple star system which is called the Alpha Centauri A and B and the Proxima Centauri.

Complete Step-by-step Solution: The Proxima Centauri is nearly$4.24$ light years from Earth and is very dim, therefore is considered as a red dwarf by the scientists. And a light year has $5.88$ trillion miles in it. While Alpha Centauri A and B are bright stars that are bound to each other by gravitational forces. The average distance between Alpha Centauri A and Alpha Centauri B is about $23$ astronomical units. The Alpha Centauri A and B are almost $4.37$ light years away from us. Many methods have been used by the scientists to calculate the distance of the stars from Earth. One of the methods is to use the parallax effect and the distance measured of the stars by this method is in parsec. Even some really small spacecraft are also planned to send on these stars to know them more closely. The other close stars to us are Barnard’s star, Wolf $359$, Lalande $21185$ etc.

Note: The Proxima Centauri is the closest to us currently, over say $100,000$ years, the position of the bodies in space might change and then any other star would be the closest one to us. This happens because the components of our Milky Way Galaxy constantly move from one place to another.