What is the closest star to Earth called?

Answer 1

Trivially the Sun. If you meant other than the Sun, the closest stars are the three in the Alpha Centauri system, about 4.3 light years away. One member of the system... Alpha Centauri C, aka Proxima Centauri, can get closer than the other two; at minimum it's about 4.2 light years away.

It's considered at least possible by some astronomers that the sun has a dim red or brown dwarf companion at a distance of 0.1 to 1 light year. If it exists, this star has a name: Nemesis. Despite its nearness, it would not be particularly bright and would not have an especially large proper motion, so it would be difficult to identify, though if it exists it's undoubtedly been photographed many times.

Answer 2

To be precise, our Sun is a star.... but

At 4.34 light years dstance, Alpha Centauri is the nearest bright star to the Earth.

Its companion star, Proxima Centauri is the nearest star at 4.24 light years.

Answer 3

What a great question ! It actually shows how impossible it is to wrap our minds

around the numbers, distances, and dimensions that fall out of Astronomy every day.

You're thinking that maybe Pluto is so far from the sun that its closest 'next star'

may be different from the closest 'next star' from Earth.

Maybe this will help:

-- Pluto is about 35 times farther from the sun than Earth is.

-- The next nearest star to our solar system is is more than 200 thousand times

farther from the sun than Earth is.

If I shrink everything down, so that the next nearest star is 25 miles away, then

-- The sun and the Earth are as far apart as your thumb and pinky finger on the same hand.

-- Pluto and the sun are about far apart as the length of your garage.

-- The nearest next star is 25 miles away, and all the others are way past that one.

The answer to the question is:

Without using several decimal places, the sun, the Earth, Pluto, and all the moons and other planets in our solar system are all essentially the same distance from the next nearest star.

Answer 4

The NEAREST star to the Earth is our own Sun, but that's probably not what you meant.

The next-closest star is the red dwarf star Proxima Centauri at 4.2 Light-years distance. After that, Alpha and Beta Centauri are a binary star system at 4.4 LY away.

Answer 5

Sun (Sol): approximately 93 Million Miles Away.

Proxima Centauri: 4.2 Light Years Away

Rigil Kentaurus: 4.3 Light Years Away

Barnard's Star: 6.0 Light Years Away

Wolf 359: 7.7 Light Years Away

Luyten 726-8A: 8.4 Light Years Away

Luyten 726-8B: 8.4 Light Years Away

Sirius A: 8.6 Light Years Away

Sirius B: 8.6 Light Years Away

Ross 154: 9.4 Light Years Away

Those are the 10 closest stars to Earth

Answer 6

The 'Sun' is the nearest Star.
the nearest star to earth is the sun. approximatley 150 million kilometres

Answer 7

The Sun at approximately 93 million miles followed by Proxima Centauri at 4.22 light years.

Answer 8

The Sun of our solar system behind that is Proxima Centari at 4.2 light years away

Answer 9

the closest star is the sun because it is 92,955,900 miles away from earth.

Answer 10

The Sun. Beyond the Sun the nearest star to Earth is Proxima Centauri.