Alpha centauri where is it located

If it's bound, it has an orbital period around the other two stars of about , years. To the naked eye, the Alpha Centauri A and B shine as one, making them the third brightest "star" in our night sky. The two separate stars can be seen through a small telescope, making the system one of the finest binary stars that can be observed. Proxima Centauri is too faint to see unaided, and through a telescope it appears about four diameters of the full moon away from the other two.

Alpha Centauri B is an orange K1-type star slightly smaller than the sun. The system is in the Southern sky and is not visible to observers above the latitude of 29 degrees north, according to EarthSky. Its right ascension is 14h 39m 41s and its declination is minus 60 degrees 50 minutes 7 seconds.

Astronomers announced in August that they had detected an Earth-size planet orbiting Proxima Centauri. The planet, known as Proxima b, is about 1. In the year 27, CE, the star will make its closest approach to the Sun, coming within 2. At perihelion, it will shine at magnitude Proxima Centauri was discovered in by the Scottish astronomer Robert T. Innes from the Union Observatory in South Africa. Innes used a 9-inch refractor and a inch astrographic camera and found a star that had the same high proper motion as Alpha Centauri AB.

He believed that the star was closer to the Sun than Alpha Centauri, which was already considered the nearest star system, and gave it the name Proxima. The distance of Proxima was definitively measured by the American astronomer Harold Lee Alden from the Yale observatory station in Johannesburg.

Finsen gave an orbital period of The currently accepted orbital period of The Sun is believed to be either in the Local Interstellar Cloud or in the area between the two clouds, but it is moving towards the G-Cloud. The G-Cloud also contains Altair , the brightest star in the constellation Aquila and the 12th brightest star in the sky, located at a distance of The nearest star or star system to Alpha Centauri is not the Sun, but Luhman 16, a binary system composed of two brown dwarfs.

Luhman 16 is located only 3. The system does not appear very close to Alpha Centauri on the sky as it lies in the constellation Vela , south of Mu Velorum and north of the Carina Nebula in Carina. An observer on a hypothetical planet in the Alpha Centauri system would see pretty much the same sky that observers on Earth see.

However, they would see Centaurus without its brightest star. Alpha Centauri AB would appear as a close visual double that could be resolved without binoculars most of the time.

The two stars would have apparent magnitudes of The Sun would appear as a first-magnitude star in the constellation Cassiopeia. As the nearest star system to the Sun, Alpha Centauri is a target for several interstellar exploration missions that are still in concept stage and will likely remain so for the foreseeable future because the technology that would reduce travel time to the star system does not yet exist.

The existing spacecraft would take several millennia to get there. In , NASA introduced a project aiming to launch an interstellar probe by the year — on the th anniversary of the Moon landing — to search for biosignatures on planets in the system. Even though the mission concept is in the preliminary stage, the use of solar sails propelled by high energy lasers to reduce travel time has been suggested.

Solar sails are also the method of choice for the well-funded Breakthrough Starshot project, announced on April 12, The project was developed by the physicist and entrepreneur Yuri Milner, physicist Stephen Hawking, and internet entrepreneur Mark Zuckerberg, with the goal to develop a fleet of solar sail spacecraft that could be sent to the Alpha Centauri system. In January , Breakthrough Initiatives also started collaborating with the European Southern Observatory to search for planets in the habitable zones of the Alpha Centauri system.

The journey would take years and a return message to Earth would take only about four years. The first craft may launch by the year Alpha Centauri has played a prominent role in many cultures in the southern hemisphere. In Australia, the Boorong people of northwest Victoria called the stars Bermbermgle , after two brothers known for their courage. In local lore, the brothers helped do away with Tchingal , the Emu, represented by the nearby dark Coalsack Nebula.

The Wotjobaluk people of Victoria had a similar legend and called the brothers Bram-bram-bult. Fujii CC BY 4. Like many other bright and nearby stars, Alpha Centauri has been used in countless works of fiction, including literature, film and television, comic books, and video games.

All three components of the Alpha Centauri system have formal names. It has also been abbreviated to Rigil Kent or just Rigil. It shares the same etymology as Rigel Beta Orionis , the name of the bright star that marks the foot of Orion. The name was once colloquially used for the entire star system. Innes, who discovered the star in and proposed the name Proxima Centaurus, believing that the star was closer to us than Alpha Centauri AB.

Alpha Centauri was known by many other names across different cultures throughout history. The two stars point in the direction of the Southern Cross , a conspicuous southern asterism commonly used to find true south. It is part of the Horn mansion, which represents the horns of the Azure Dragon. Alpha Centauri is very easy to find. It lies near Hadar , the 11th brightest star in the sky, and the Southern Cross , a prominent southern asterism formed by the bright stars Acrux , Mimosa , Gacrux , Imai and Ginan in the constellation Crux.

However, due to its location in the far southern sky, Alpha Centauri stays invisible to observers in mid-northern latitudes. Alpha Centauri culminates, i. The faint red dwarf lies 2. And a re-examination of the original study suggested that the planet might be an artifact of the data processing, according to a report by the deep-space exploration site Centauri Dreams. Regardless, because of their nearness, the Alpha Centauri twins and Proxima Centauri offer a promising location to look for planets at a distance — especially using direct imaging — if researchers can filter out the complexities of the double star.

And they also seem to be a good place to visit. The distance may be vast, but it could be relatively easy for Starshot's nanocraft or other interstellar travelers to blast through and beam back information to Earth about the system with a bit more than a four-year delay. While planets orbiting those stars would see a starscape that is quite different from Earth's, the stars' similarity to the sun would make their habitable zones an intriguing place to look for Earth analogues.

Email Sarah Lewin at slewin space. Original article on Space. Image: David Benbennick. The star has a projected rotational velocity of 2.

Alpha Centauri A is the fourth individual brightest star in the night sky, with an apparent magnitude of The star has an absolute magnitude of 4. It is a main sequence star with the stellar classification K1 V, which makes it more orange in colour than Alpha Centauri A, which is yellowish.

The star has a radius about 14 percent smaller than the Sun. Alpha Centauri B has a projected rotational velocity of 1. Even though it is not as luminous as Alpha Centauri A, the star emits more energy in X-ray. If it could be seen as a star separate from Alpha Centauri A, star B would be the 21st individual brightest star in the sky, with an apparent magnitude of 1.

It has an absolute magnitude of 5. Alpha Centauri C, better known as Proxima Centauri , is the nearest known individual star to the Sun, at a distance of 4.

Proxima Centauri lies in the constellation of Centaurus The Centaur , just over four light-years from Earth. Although it looks bright through the eye of Hubble, as you might expect from the nearest star to the Solar System, Proxima Centauri is not visible to the unaided eye. Its average luminosity is very low, and it is quite small compared to other stars, at only about an eighth of the mass of the Sun.

However, on occasion, its brightness increases. It is likely gravitationally bound to Alpha Centauri AB and lies at a distance of 0. Proxima Centauri belongs to the stellar class M5 Ve or VIe, which means that it is red in colour and either a small main sequence star V or a subdwarf VI with emission lines. The star has a mass of about 0. It is classified as a flare star, and its brightness can sometimes suddenly increase to magnitude The star has an absolute magnitude of If Proxima Centauri is gravitationally bound to the Alpha Centauri system, it orbits the binary pair with a period between , and , years.

The distance between the stars varies from The distances are roughly equivalent to those between the Sun and Pluto and between the Sun and Saturn.