EVERYDAY SCIENCE

Detailed explanation-1: -Proxima Centauri is the closest star to the Sun, lying just over four light-years away. The newly discovered planet, named Proxima d, orbits Proxima Centauri at a distance of about four million kilometres, less than a tenth of Mercury’s distance from the Sun.

Detailed explanation-2: -Distance Information Proxima Centauri, the closest star to our own, is still 40, 208, 000, 000, 000 km away. (Or about 268, 770 AU.) When we talk about the distances to the stars, we no longer use the AU, or Astronomical Unit; commonly, the light year is used.

Detailed explanation-3: -Proxima Centauri is a small, low-mass star located 4.2465 light-years (1.3020 pc) away from the Sun in the southern constellation of Centaurus. Its Latin name means the ‘nearest [star] of Centaurus’. It was discovered in 1915 by Robert Innes and is the nearest-known star to the Sun.

Detailed explanation-4: -From Havard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics At first glance, Proxima Centauri seems nothing like our sun. It’s a small, cool, red dwarf star only one-tenth as massive and one-thousandth as luminous as the sun.