Alpha Centauri

Alpha Centauri is the closest star system to the Solar System at a distance of 4.37 light-years (1.34 pc).

It consists of three stars: the pair Alpha Centauri A and Alpha Centauri B together with a small and faint red dwarf, Alpha Centauri C (also named Proxima Centauri), that may be gravitationally bound to the other two.

To the unaided eye, the two main components appear as a single point of light with an apparent visual magnitude of ?0.27, forming the brightest star in the southern constellation of Centaurus and the third-brightest star in the night sky, outshone only by Sirius and Canopus.