Proxima Centauri 


1. Discovery
 
Proxima Centauri (Latin proxima, meaning "next to" or "nearest to")1 is a red dwarf star about 4.24 light-years distant inside the G-cloud in the constellation of Centaurus. It was discovered in 1915 by Robert Innes, the Director of the Union Observatory in South Africa, and is the nearest known star to the Sun, although it is too faint to be seen with the naked eye. Its distance to the second- and third-nearest stars, which form the bright binary Alpha Centauri, is 0.237 ± 0.011 ly (15,000 ± 700 AU)2. Proxima Centauri is very likely part of a triple star system with Alpha Centauri A and B with coordinates listed in Table 1.

Table 1. Observation data
Parameter
value
Right ascension 
14h 29m 42.9487s
Declination
−62° 40′ 46.141″
Apparent magnitude (V)
11m.05

2. Observation

In 1915, Robert Innes, Director of the Union Observatory in Johannesburg, South Africa, discovered a star that had the same proper motion as Alpha Centauri. He suggested it be named Proxima Centauri. In 1917, at the Royal Observatory at the Cape of Good Hope, the Dutch astronomer Joan Voûte measured the star's trigonometric parallax and confirmed that Proxima Centauri was the same distance from the Sun as Alpha Centauri. It was also found to be the lowest-luminosity star known at the time. The first accurate parallax determination of Proxima Centauri was made by American astronomer Harold L. Alden in 1928, who confirmed the earlier results with a parallax of 0.783 ± 0.005″.


Bibliography
1.  "Latin Resources". Joint Association of Classical Teachers. Retrieved 2007-07-15
2.  Wertheimer, Jeremy G.; Laughlin, Gregory (2006). "Are Proxima and α Centauri Gravitationally  	Bound?". The Astronomical Journal 132 (5): 1995–1997