Nearest Stars to the Sun

About This Dataset

This chart ranks the nearest known star systems to the Sun by distance in light-years. Proxima Centauri, part of the Alpha Centauri system, is our closest stellar neighbour.

✨ AI Insight

Proxima Centauri, at 4.25 light-years, is the closest star to the Sun, narrowly ahead of the main Alpha Centauri pair (4.34 light-years) to which it is loosely bound. Even this nearest neighbour is so remote that light, travelling at 300,000 km per second, takes more than four years to reach us. Barnard's Star (5.96) is the next closest, and most of the remaining neighbours, Wolf 359, Lalande 21185, Ross 154 and Ross 248, are faint red dwarfs invisible to the naked eye. Sirius (8.71), the brightest star in our sky, is a notable exception, being both relatively close and intrinsically luminous. The tight span from 4.25 to 10.47 light-years underlines how sparse stars really are, with vast stretches of empty space separating even the closest suns.

Source: List of nearest stars

Key Findings

Auto-computed highlights from this dataset

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Epsilon Eridani leads with 10 in All Time.

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Average value in All Time: 8 · median: 9.

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Gap in All Time: Epsilon Eridani is 2.5× larger than Proxima Centauri.