scinerds:

Top 8 Closest Stars to Our Solar System

According to the About Astronomy and Space Online Dictionary, stars are:

“A ball of mostly hydrogen and helium gas that shines extremely brightly. Our Sun is a star. A star is so massive that its core is extremely dense and hot. At the high core temperatures of a star, atoms move so fast that they sometimes stick to other atoms when they collide with them, forming more massive atoms and releasing a great amount of energy. This process is known as nuclear fusion.”

Here are the Top 8 Closest Stars to our solar system.

1. Proxima Centauri

The closest star to our our own solar system will not always be closest, but it will be a long time before that happens. Proxima Centauri is the third star in the Alpha Centauri star system, also known as Alpha Centauri C.

• Distance: 4.2 LY
• Spectral Type: M5.5Vc

2. Rigil Kentaurus

The second closest star is a tie between the sister stars of Proxima Centauri. Alpha Centauri A and B make up the other two stars of the triple star system Alpha Centauri.

• Distance: 4.3 LY
• Spectral Type: G2V

3. Barnard’s Star

A faint red dwarf star, discovered in 1916 by E. E. Barnard, recent efforts to discover planets around Barnard’s Star have failed.

• Distance: 5.9 LY
• Spectral Type: M3.8V

4. Wolf 359

Known to many as thelocation of a famous battle on Star Trek the Next generation, Wolf 359 is a red dwarf. It is so small that if it were to replace our sun, an observer on Earth would need a telescope to see it clearly.

• Distance: 7.7 LY
• Spectral Type: M5.8Vc

5. Lalande 21185

While it is the fifth closest star to our own sun, Lalande 21185 is about three times too faint to be seen with the naked eye.

• Distance: 8.26 LY
• Spectral Type: M2V

6. Luyten 726-8A and B

Discovered by Willem Jacob Luyten (1899-1994), both Luyten 726-8A 726-8B are red dwarfs and too faint to be seen with the naked eye.

• Distance: 8.73 LY
• Spectral Type: M5.5 de & M6 Ve

7. Sirius A and B

Sirius, also known as the Dog Star, is the brightest star in the sky. Sirius B, the companion, has received considerable attention itself, since it is the first white dwarf with a spectrum to show a gravitational red shift as predicted by the general theory of relativity.

• Distance: 8.6 LY
• Spectral Type: A1Vm

8. Ross 154

Ross 154 appears to be a flare star, which means that it can increase its brightness by a factor of 10 or more before reverting to its normal state, a process which takes only a few minutes.

• Distance: 9.693 LY
• Spectral Type: M3.5