Proxima Centauri (discovery)
Próxima Centauri (descubrimiento)
- Date
- 1915 · confidence high
- Place
- Union Observatory, Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa
- Credited to
- Robert T. A. Innes
- Field
- Cosmos & Earth
What was discovered
In 1915 Innes noticed a faint red dwarf with the same proper motion as Alpha Centauri; Joan Voûte later confirmed its distance. It is the star nearest the Sun, at 4.24 light-years.
Innes called it Proxima Centauri; the present name was fixed by Voûte (1917) on measuring the parallax. A telescope is needed: its magnitude is 11.
What it led to
- the discovery of the planet Proxima b (2016)
- low-mass stars and flares
- a target of the Breakthrough Starshot project