Proxima Centauri

In the photo you see above, the yellowish star on the left is Alpha Centauri, which is known to us almost 4.4 light years away. If you can barely see the enlarged area at the bottom, the Proxima Centauri is the closest star to us, 4.2 light years away.

Alpha Centauri is one of the brightest stars in the sky. Although it does not look like a single star in the photo, it is a binary star system consisting of two Sun-like stars, each about 3.5 billion kilometers away and running around each other. Proxima Centauri is a red dwarf star who is a member of the same system, and it wraps around an orbit that lasts for 1 million years around both stars.

The Proxima Centauri is a fairly small red jug with a total mass of nearly Jupiter, with a surface heat (2 800 degrees) as mass and half as much as the Sun's only 12%. So much so that most of the red dwarf stars remain gigantic next to the Proxima Centauri.

This little dwarf star is almost the same age as the Sun. If there is a system of planets around, the planets must be the same age as the planets in our system. However, because the star is too small and pale, the likelihood of "developing" life on these planets seems low. Because, the star's life-line is very close to him and it is very dangerous to be close to this star.

Because the world is located 150 million km away from the Sun, it takes up enough heat and light to make life progress. If it were the Proxima Centauri in the place of the Sun, our Earth would have to have an orbit 7.5 million kilometers to get as much heat and light as it is today. So if we were close enough, Proxima Centauri would be producing enough heat and light to make us feel comfortable. But, as we have pointed out above, being so close to this star creates some serious distress, such as gravitational climbing.

At the top of the cover we see a bright blue star on the right. Although this star called Beta Centauri seems to be on the side, it has nothing to do with the Alpha Centauri system. It is a giant star that is 10 times larger than the Sun, far away, 320 light years away.

After 5-6 billion years, neither the Sun, nor the Alpha Centauri, nor the Beta Centauri, nor the stars we see with the naked eye in the sky today, will all die. But Proxima Centauri will continue to be there for at least 500 billion years.

Finally, consider that; how could he discover this very dull star that astronomers were closest to us in the star crowd that he barely picked up, how did he realize it? Robert Innes, a Scottish sculptor, had discovered this star in 1915 and determined what it was and what it was, and he had no possibilities today. Yes, astronomy is just about the nights spent on discovering something. It takes great labor to "discover" anything about the universe.