Every Hidden Star Near Us Explained In 15 Minutes

Alpha Centauri The closest star system to the Sun sits about 4.37 light years away. It is not one star. It is three, bound together by gravity into a single system, and to the unaided eye they collapse into a single brilliant point, the third brightest star in the entire night sky. Only a telescope reveals that the point is not one object but a family. The two main stars, Alpha Centauri A and Alpha Centauri B, are close in nature to the Sun. A is slightly larger and brighter, a yellow star almost identical to our own in temperature and color, the kind of star that could in principle warm a world the way the Sun warms Earth. B is a little smaller and cooler, orange in hue, but still comfortably Sun-like.