How far is the nearest star?
Is this a trick question? Because, strictly speaking, the Sun is a star. The Sun is roughly 150 million kilometers away. But the normal English usage of ‘star’ refers to things that only come out at night. In that case, the nearest star is Proxima Centauri, a red dwarf positioned 4.2 light years away in the southern constellation of The Centaur. It is a member of a bright triple star system, but is not visible to the naked eye itself. In fact the entire system appears as a single bright star called Alpha Centauri, and is one of the two pointer stars which help travelers to find the Southern Cross.
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