Courses › The Universe from Scratch › Lesson 4
The star nearest the Sun · premieres Monday, October 26
The star nearest the Sun is called Proxima Centauri. It is 4.25 light-years away: its light takes more than four years to reach us. From Earth it is not visible to the naked eye; you need a telescope.
| Figure | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Distance | 4.2465 light-years (1.3020 pc) | Gaia DR3, parallax 768.0665 ± 0.0499 mas (verified 11 Oct 2026) |
| Star | 0.1221 M☉; 0.141 R☉; 2,900 K | Suárez Mascareño et al. 2025 (A&A 700, A11), via NASA Exoplanet Archive |
| Proxima b | M sin i = 1.055 M⊕; period 11.18465 ± 0.00052 d; confirmed 2016 | Suárez Mascareño et al. 2025 (joint fit); Anglada-Escudé et al. 2016 |
| Proxima d | M sin i = 0.26 M⊕; period 5.12338 ± 0.00035 d; confirmed 2025 with NIRPS | Suárez Mascareño et al. 2025 (joint fit) |
| Proxima c | 2020 candidate, under discussion | Damasso et al. 2020; evidence inconclusive in 2025 |
| No transits | No measured radius; drawn radii are estimates (Chen and Kipping 2017) | Proxima Centauri template (README) |
They are Solaris Core Blender templates, built from measured data. You can download them, change the camera and make your own images.
See templates