The AsterNym star registry
Proxima Centauri
Proxima Centauri: the deep red star of Centaurus
deep red · Centaurus · α Cen
Proxima Centauri is a deep red star in the constellation Centaurus, one of the stars with a proper name recognised in the IAU Catalog of Star Names. At magnitude 11.01 it is a binocular or telescope object.
Most stars in the sky are anonymous points of light. Proxima Centauri is not. Some IAU-recognised names are ancient; others were adopted by the IAU only recently. Either way, the star already has a scientific identity, and a dedication attaches a human story to it.
Real star · Personal dedication · Recorded in the AsterNym registry
See what a dedicated page looks like: preview
Proxima Centauri at a glance
- Constellation
- Centaurus
- Other name
- α Cen
- Catalogue number
- HIP 70890
- Distance
- ≈ 4.0 light-years
- Brightness
- Magnitude 11.01 telescope
- Star type
- M5Ve
- Colour
- deep red
- Best seen from
- The far southern sky
- Right ascension
- 14h 29m 43s
- Declination
- −62° 40′ 46″
J2000 catalogue coordinates that can be independently cross-checked against astronomical databases. A planetarium app showing coordinates of date will differ slightly, because proper motion and precession move a star’s apparent position over time.
What kind of star is Proxima Centauri?
Proxima Centauri is a red main-sequence star. Its surface runs under 4,000°C, which is cool as stars go and why the colour is unmistakably red. Colour in a star is a temperature reading rather than a decoration: the hot ones are blue and the cool ones red, the opposite way round to a kitchen tap.
Most of the stars in the galaxy are this kind and almost none of them are visible to the eye. The red ones you can see are the exceptions: enormous, swollen and close to the end rather than small and long-lived.
A star of this class gets hundreds of thousands of millions of years for the small ones.
It is a main-sequence star, which despite the word dwarf simply means it is in the long stable middle of its life, fusing hydrogen in its core exactly as the Sun is doing now.
Proxima Centauri is one of the fastest-moving stars in the sky. It shifts about 385 arcseconds every century, which sounds tiny and is not: over a human lifetime it visibly changes position against the stars behind it. The constellations are not fixed, they are just slow, and this one is in a hurry.
The light you are looking at is old
Light travels fast but not instantly, so what reaches your eye from Proxima Centauri tonight set out in 2022. That is inside a single lifetime. Someone alive now was already alive when this particular light left.
Distance is also the honest limit of what a star can be to you. It is a real object, unimaginably large, and it does not know you exist. What it can be is a fixed point you agreed to attach a meaning to, which is the oldest use people have ever had for the sky.
It sits at the edge of what an unaided eye can do, so finding it is a deliberate act rather than an accident.
What does the name Proxima Centauri mean?
Its Latin name means the 'nearest of Centaurus'.
Name origin from English Wikipedia. AsterNym does not invent an etymology where none is recorded, and most stars in this catalogue have none: they carry modern names, or a catalogue designation and nothing older.
What could a Proxima Centauri dedication represent?
Proxima Centauri is especially meaningful for someone who:
- · Deserves something older than any gift shop
- · Marks a beginning, an anniversary or a promise
- · Is remembered every time you look up
- · Has a light you want recorded somewhere permanent
Dedication idea
“For the one I think of when I find Centaurus in the sky.”
Where can you see Proxima Centauri?
It is a deep-southern star: easy from Australia, New Zealand, southern Africa and South America, but it never rises for observers north of about latitude 27°N. It passes directly overhead at latitude 63°S. It stands highest at midnight in April, so April and May evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 11.01 it sits below naked-eye reach; binoculars or a small telescope will find it.
Proxima Centauri belongs to Centaurus.
What does Proxima Centauri mean in astrology?
The classical fixed-star tradition: Ptolemy, the medieval Behenian lists, Robson’s 1923 compilation. Is silent on Proxima Centauri, and we don’t invent lore where none exists. What astrology can still read is the star’s real position, below.
Projected onto the zodiac the way fixed-star astrology reads any star, Proxima Centauri stands at 29° Scorpio at the J2000 epoch, and the Sun passes that degree around 18 November in the years around 2000. Fixed-star longitude shifts slowly against the tropical zodiac because of precession, about one degree every seventy-two years, so a natal conjunction must be calculated for the birth year rather than read off this J2000 value or a calendar date.
Traditional interpretations, not facts or predictions. The position and dates are computed.
Dedicate Proxima Centauri to someone who matters
A flower fades. A card is eventually put away. A star gives your message a place in the sky.
from$29.95a year
Dedicate Proxima Centauri →Real star · your message · a page to share
Your Proxima Centauri dedication includes
- Your chosen dedication name
- Your personal message
- Proxima Centauri's real astronomical coordinates
- A shareable dedication page
- Its location on the AsterNym Galaxy Map
- An optional printable certificate and gift presentation
Proxima Centauri keeps its established astronomical name. Your dedication is a personal commemorative record within the AsterNym registry.
Frequently asked questions about Proxima Centauri
- What does Proxima Centauri mean in astrology?
- The classical fixed-star tradition has no documented meaning for Proxima Centauri. Projected onto the zodiac, Proxima Centauri stands at 29° Scorpio, and the Sun passes that degree each year around 18 November.
- Is Proxima Centauri the brightest star?
- Proxima Centauri shines at magnitude 11.01 · a binocular-and-telescope star, one of the few thousand stars with an officially recognised name.
- How far away is Proxima Centauri?
- Proxima Centauri is approximately 4.0 light-years from Earth. The light reaching us tonight began its journey around 4 years ago.
- Which constellation contains Proxima Centauri?
- Proxima Centauri is part of Centaurus.
- Can everyone see Proxima Centauri?
- It is a deep-southern star: easy from Australia, New Zealand, southern Africa and South America, but it never rises for observers north of about latitude 27°N. It passes directly overhead at latitude 63°S. It stands highest at midnight in April, so April and May evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 11.01 it sits below naked-eye reach; binoculars or a small telescope will find it.
- Is dedicating Proxima Centauri an official astronomical renaming?
- No. Proxima Centauri keeps its internationally recognised astronomical name. An AsterNym dedication records your personal name and message in the AsterNym registry without changing the star's scientific identity.
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