Alpha Centauri

Alpha Centauri is the brightest object in the constellation of Centaurus (top left).
Apparent and true orbits of Alpha Centauri. The A component is held stationary, and the relative orbital motion of the B component is shown. The apparent orbit (thin ellipse) is the shape of the orbit as seen by an observer on Earth. The true orbit is the shape of the orbit viewed perpendicular to the plane of the orbital motion. According to the radial velocity versus time, the radial separation of A and B along the line of sight had reached a maximum in 2007, with B being further from Earth than A. The orbit is divided here into 80 points: each step refers to a timestep of approx. 0.99888 years or 364.84 days.
The relative sizes and colours of stars in the Alpha Centauri system, compared to the Sun
Relative positions of Sun, Alpha Centauri AB and Proxima Centauri. Grey dot is projection of Proxima Centauri, located at the same distance as Alpha Centauri AB.
The two bright stars at the lower right are Alpha (right) and Beta Centauri (left, above antenna). A line drawn through them points to the four bright stars of the Southern Cross, just to the right of the dome of the Danish 1.54 m telescope at La Silla Observatory in Chile.
Alpha Centauri AB taken in daylight by holding a Canon Powershot S100 in line with the eyepiece of a 110-mm refractor. The photo is one of the best frames of a video. The double star is clearly visible.
View of Alpha Centauri from the Digitized Sky Survey-2
Alpha Centauri A is of the same stellar type G2 as the Sun, while Alpha Centauri B is a K1-type star.
Closest stars to the Sun
Distances of the nearest stars from 20,000 years ago until 80,000 years in the future
Animation showing motion of Alpha Centauri through the sky. (The other stars are held fixed for didactic reasons) "Oggi" means today. "Anni" means years.
The discovery image of Alpha Centauri's candidate Neptunian planet, marked here as "C1".
Looking towards the sky around Orion from Alpha Centauri with Sirius near Betelgeuse, Procyon in Gemini, and the Sun in Cassiopeia generated by Celestia.
Simulated night-sky image with a "W" of stars from Cassiopeia connected by lines, and the Sun, labeled "Sol", as it would appear to the left of the "W"
The Very Large Telescope and Alpha Centauri

For other uses, see Alpha Centauri (disambiguation).

- Alpha Centauri

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K-type main-sequence star

Orange dwarf, is a main-sequence star of spectral type K and luminosity class V. These stars are intermediate in size between red M-type main-sequence stars ("red dwarfs") and yellow/white G-type main-sequence stars.

61 Cygni, a binary K-type star system.

Well-known examples include Alpha Centauri B (K1 V) and Epsilon Indi (K5 V).

Proxima Centauri

Small, low-mass star located 4.2465 ly away from the Sun in the southern constellation of Centaurus.

Alpha Centauri AB is the bright star to the left, which forms a triple star system with Proxima Centauri, circled in red. The bright star system to the right is Beta Centauri.
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Proxima Centauri is a member of the Alpha Centauri star system, being identified as component Alpha Centauri C, and is 2.18° to the southwest of the Alpha Centauri AB pair.

Centaurus

Bright constellation in the southern sky.

Centaurus in the southwestern sky, shortly after sunset.
The two bright stars are (left) Alpha Centauri and (right) Beta Centauri. The faint red star in the center of the red circle is Proxima Centauri.
Centaurus in the Firmamentum Sobiescianum of Johannes Hevelius. This image is reversed from what one sees looking at the sky — it is as though one is looking at the "celestial sphere" from the outside.
Centaurus, 1602

Notable stars include Alpha Centauri, the nearest star system to the Solar System, its neighbour in the sky Beta Centauri, and V766 Centauri, one of the largest stars yet discovered.

G-type main-sequence star

Main-sequence star (luminosity class V) of spectral type G. Such a star has about 0.9 to 1.1 solar masses and an effective temperature between about 5,300 and 6,000 K.

The Sun, a typical example of a G-type main-sequence star

Besides the Sun, other well-known examples of G-type main-sequence stars include Alpha Centauri, Tau Ceti, Capella and 51 Pegasi.

List of nearest stars and brown dwarfs

This list covers all known stars, brown dwarfs, and sub-brown dwarfs within 5.0 pc of the Solar System.

Animated 3D map of the nearest stars, centered on the Sun.
Distance and angle conformal map of the celestial neighbourhood within 12 light years of Sol.
Distances of the nearest stars from 20,000 years ago until 80,000 years in the future

The Local Bubble also contains the neighboring G-Cloud, which contains the stars Alpha Centauri and Altair.

Star system

Small number of stars that orbit each other, bound by gravitational attraction.

Star system named DI Cha. While only two stars are apparent, it is actually a quadruple system containing two sets of binary stars.
Orbits of the HR 6819 hierarchical triple star system: an inner binary with one star (orbit in blue) and a black hole (orbit in red), encircled by another star in a wider orbit (also in blue).
Subsystem notation in Tokovinin's Multiple Star Catalogue
Sirius A (center), with its white dwarf companion, Sirius B (lower left) taken by the Hubble Space Telescope.
HD 98800 is a quadruple star system located in the TW Hydrae association.

Alpha Centauri is a triple star composed of a main binary yellow dwarf pair (Alpha Centauri A and Alpha Centauri B), and an outlying red dwarf, Proxima Centauri. Together, A and B form a physical binary star, designated as Alpha Centauri AB, α Cen AB, or RHD 1 AB, where the AB denotes this is a binary system. The moderately eccentric orbit of the binary can make the components be as close as 11 AU or as far away as 36 AU. Proxima Centauri, also (though less frequently) called Alpha Centauri C, is much farther away (between 4300 and 13,000 AU) from α Cen AB, and orbits the central pair with a period of 547,000 (+66,000/-40,000) years.

List of brightest stars

List of stars arranged by their apparent magnitude – their brightness as observed from Earth.

Some major asterisms, which feature many of the brightest stars in the night sky.

Stellar brightness is traditionally based on the apparent visual magnitude as perceived by the human eye, from the brightest stars of 1st magnitude to the faintest at 6th magnitude. Since the invention of the optical telescope and the documenting of binary stars and multiple star systems, stellar brightness could be expressed as either individual (separate) or total (combined) magnitude. The table is ordered by combined magnitude of all naked eye components appearing as if it they were single stars. Such multiple star systems are indicated by parentheses showing the individual magnitudes of component stars bright enough to make a detectable contribution. For example, the double star Alpha Centauri has the total or combined magnitude of −0.27, while its two component stars have magnitudes of +0.01 and +1.33.

Canopus

Brightest star in the southern constellation of Carina and the second-brightest star in the night sky.

The constellation Carina with Canopus towards the right (west)
Wide angle view showing Canopus and other prominent stars with the Milky Way
Canopus is the brightest star in the constellation of Carina (top).
Averroes, who used his 1153 observation of Canopus in Marrakesh while the star was invisible in his native Spain as an argument that the earth is round.
Canopus-class battleship HMS Glory

English explorer Robert Hues brought Canopus to the attention of European observers in his 1592 work Tractatus de Globis, along with Achernar and Alpha Centauri, noting: "Now, therefore, there are but three Stars of the first magnitude that I could perceive in all those parts which are never seene here in England. The first of these is that bright Star in the sterne of Argo which they call Canobus. The second is in the end of Eridanus. The third is in the right foote of the Centaure."

Brown dwarf

Brown dwarfs are substellar objects that are not massive enough to sustain nuclear fusion of ordinary hydrogen (1H) into helium in their cores, unlike a main-sequence star.

The smaller object is Gliese 229B, about 20 to 50 times the mass of Jupiter, orbiting the star Gliese 229. It is in the constellation Lepus, about 19 light-years from Earth.
Planets, brown dwarfs, stars (not to scale)
An artistic concept of the brown dwarf around the star HD 29587, a companion known as HD 29587 b, and estimated to be about 55 Jupiter masses
A size comparison between the Sun, a young sub-brown dwarf, and Jupiter. As the sub-brown dwarf ages, it will gradually cool and shrink.
Artist's vision of a late-M dwarf
Artist's vision of an L dwarf
Artist's vision of a T dwarf
Artist's vision of a Y dwarf
WISE 0458+6434 is the first ultra-cool brown dwarf (green dot) discovered by WISE. The green and blue comes from infrared wavelengths mapped to visible colors.
Artist's illustration of a brown dwarf's interior structure. Cloud layers at certain depths are offset as a result of layer shifting.
Wind measured (Spitzer ST; Artist Concept; 9 Apr 2020)
Brown dwarfs Teide 1, Gliese 229B, and WISE 1828+2650 compared to red dwarf Gliese 229A, Jupiter and our Sun
Chandra image of LP 944-20 before flare and during flare
Multi-epoch images of brown dwarf binaries taken with the Hubble Space Telescope. The binary Luhman 16 AB (left) is closer to the Solar System than the other examples shown here.
A visualization representing a three-dimensional map of brown dwarfs (red dots) that have been discovered within 65 light-years of the Sun
The HH 1165 jet launched by the brown dwarf Mayrit 1701117 in the outer periphery of the sigma Orionis cluster
Artist's impression of a disc of dust and gas around a brown dwarf
Brown dwarf illustration<ref>{{cite web |first1=Megan |last1=Tannock |first2=Stanimir |last2=Metchev |first3=Amanda |last3=Kocz |title=Caught Speeding: Clocking the Fastest-Spinning Brown Dwarfs |url=https://noirlab.edu/public/news/noirlab2114/ |publisher=NOIRLab |date=7 April 2021 |access-date=9 April 2021 }}</ref>

Luhman 16 is the third closest system to the Sun after Alpha Centauri and Barnard's Star.

Binary star

System of two stars that are gravitationally bound to and in orbit around each other.

Binary system of two stars
Edge-on disc of gas and dust present around the binary star system HD 106906
Algol B orbits Algol A. This animation was assembled from 55 images of the CHARA interferometer in the near-infrared H-band, sorted according to orbital phase.
Artist's conception of a cataclysmic variable system
Artist's impression of the binary star system AR Scorpii
Artist rendering of plasma ejections from V Hydrae
Artist's impression of the sight from a (hypothetical) moon of planet HD 188753 Ab (upper left), which orbits a triple star system. The brightest companion is just below the horizon.
Schematic of a binary star system with one planet on an S-type orbit and one on a P-type orbit
The two visibly distinguishable components of Albireo
Luhman 16, the third closest star system, contains two brown dwarfs.
Planet Lost in the Glare of Binary Stars (illustration)

Orbital periods can be less than an hour (for AM CVn stars), or a few days (components of Beta Lyrae), but also hundreds of thousands of years (Proxima Centauri around Alpha Centauri AB).