It is about 4 light years distance, or about 3.8x10 16 m.If our sun, which has diameter 1.392 x 10 9 meters were scaled down to the size of a period on a printed page, which is nominally about 0.5 mm, then the distance to Alpha Centauri would be about 13.6 km or about 8 miles away. The closest star to the sun is Proxima Centauri, but its brighter neighbor Alpha Centauri, a double star, is so nearly the same distance that data about it are usually given. "The M15 globular cluster has some 30,000 stars packed into a space only 28 light-years across." Ward & Brownlee comment that in the same space in a globular cluster, there might be 1000 or more. There are 40 stars within 16 light years of the Earth. The parallax ofProxima Centauri as the Earth orbits the sun is about equivalent to that of a dime at a distance of 6 kilometers. If the sun were scaled to a 1 foot radius, then Alpha Centauri would be about 10,300 miles away.
On this scale, Alpha Centauri would be 1.48 x 10 6 meters or about 890 miles away. If the Earth were scaled to 0.5 mm diameter, then the Sun would be a ball of diameter 5.4 cm ( a little smaller than a tennis ball) at a distance of 5.9 m (19 ft). If our sun, which has diameter 1.392 x 10 9 meters were scaled down to the size of a period on a printed page, which is nominally about 0.5 mm, then the distance to Alpha Centauri would be about 13.6 km or about 8 miles away. It is about 4 light years distance, or about 3.8x10 16 m. This illustration is patterned after Chaisson and McMillan, Chapter 17, where they identify the closest stellar neighbors of the Sun. Close Stars Stellar Neighbors of the Sun Click on any star for more details.
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