Download Proxima

By: Cassidy Osborne
Proxima means closest because it is
the star closest to the sun.
Proxima is about 23 trillion miles
away from Earth.
http://www.windows2universe.org/the_universe/Pr
oxima.html
Well Proxima is a very important star and it is a
“red giant” with a surface temperature of
3330K. What is a red giant?
A red giant is a star that expands and cools
once it runs out of hydrogen fuel.
These stars are not as red to our eyes as they
are orange.
Red Giant
http://foxd3sign.deviantart.com/ar
t/RED-GIANT-001-164580656
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Proxima is about 4.2 light years away from
the sun.
What is a light year?
A light year is a unit of length equal to the
distance that light travels through space in
one year.
http://www.clarkplanetarium.com/blog/wpcontent/uploads/sun-prox-cent_4501.jpg


It is 0.07 times the sun's radius. If you put
Proxima at the location of our sun, you could
just barely make out the disk.
A little bigger in volume than Jupiter. It emits
1/17,000 the luminosity of our Sun.
http://www.google.com/imgres?hl=en&gbv=2&biw=1440&bih=809&tbm=isch&tbnid=uy
bTzvdgpbA7OM:&imgrefurl=http://dotdotdot.ru/img/&docid=4lcN5FgllDoirM&imgurl=h
ttp://dotdotdot.ru/img/Sun-Proxima-Jupiter.jpg&w=500&h=375&ei=heKVT5XSJimiQLVmK3rCQ&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=185&vpy=301&dur=1471&hovh=194&hovw=259
&tx=149&ty=116&sig=103943173353807169362&page=1&tbnh=142&tbnw=189&start=0
&ndsp=25&ved=1t:429,r:6,s:0,i:81
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Proxima is about 18,000 times fainter than
the sun.
http://www.msnucleus.org/m
embership/html/jh/earth/star
s/lesson1/stars01d.html
http://www.msnucleus.org/membership/html/jh/earth/sta
rs/lesson1/stars01d.html
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The apparent magnitude of Proxima is 11.05.
Do you know what apparent magnitude is?
Apparent magnitude is its brightness as seen
by an observer on Earth.
http://space.about.com/od/stars/p
/proximacentauri.htm
The absolute magnitude of Proxima is about
15.5. That is dimmer compared to the
Sun’s…the Sun’s absolute magnitude is 4.83.
What is absolute magnitude?
Absolute magnitude is also known as the
brightness of the stars.
http://space.about.com/od/stars/p/proxi
macentauri.htm
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Proxima is located in the
constellation Centaurus
http://mail.colonial.net/~hkaiter/starweb080
9/SECTION2/andrewweb2B/andrewweb2.ht
ml
Centaurus is a Centaur, they are half man-half horse!
Centaurus faces east because he defending himself against
Lupus the goat another constellation nearby!
 Centaurus is known as a “myth” constellation.
 It’s the 9th largest constellation in the sky
 Proxima is the 3rd star in Centaurus
 Contains 2 of the brightest stars (Alpha Centauri and Beta
Centauri)
 It contains 11 stars


http://mail.colonial.net/~hkaiter/starweb0809/SECTION
2/andrewweb2B/andrewweb2.html
Centaurus is part of the Hercules family
 It has its own meteor shower
 Found in Northern Hemisphere in the spring
Found in the Southern Hemisphere in the
autumn

Centaurus was thought by the Greeks to be a head
and torso of a man and the body of a horse.
 Greek mythology says that Centaurs were the only
monsters that could do good deeds.This is what the Greeks
believed Centaurs looked
 Also according to the myth, he helped teach
like. people
how to read in the sky!
 Centaurus constellation has a picture of him in the
sky to guide a group of sailors called the "Argonots".

http://mail.colonial.net/~hkaiter/starweb0809/SEC
TION2/andrewweb2B/andrewweb2.html
http://www.rasnz.org.nz/Stars/Centaurus.htm

Centaurus is never in the sky viewed from
middle northern latitudes (around 40
degrees). As you travel south on the Earth's
surface and pass below the equator, you will
definitely see it from time to time.