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The Closest Other Star
5 min · Eve · Quiet listening
Eve
The Closest Other Star
Eve is reading this story.
Eve is ready
How to say it
Eve can say these names for you.
Tap a name. She will say it slowly.
It is about four and a quarter light-years away. It is a small, cool, red star, too faint to see without a telescope. The bright southern pointer Alpha Centauri is a different pair of stars nearby in space. Near, in space, is still unimaginably far.
Scale
You
A person, standing under a sky.
How sure are we?
We know
Proxima is the nearest star after the Sun.
We know
It is a red dwarf, much smaller and cooler than the Sun.
We don't know yet
Whether any of its planets could host life is not known.
If you wondered
The Stars the City Hides
Proxima is about magnitude 11. No backyard can see it without help.
The Tiny Shift
We know Proxima is nearest because its shift on the sky is the largest.
How Old Is This Light?
Four years is the age of the light, not of the star.
Is Anybody Out There?
The nearest other sun already has planets.