Aspects of this topic are discussed in the following places at Britannica.
...arc second. Therefore, one parsec equals 3.26 light-years. Since parallax is inversely proportional to distance, a star at 10 parsecs would have a parallax of 0.1″. The nearest star to Earth, Proxima Centauri (a member of the triple system of Alpha Centauri), has a parallax of 0.7723″, meaning that its distance is 1/0.7723, or 1.295, parsecs, which...
triple star, the faintest component of which, Proxima Centauri, is the closest star to the Sun, at about 4.2 light-years’ distance. The two brighter components, about 1/5 light-year farther from the Sun, revolve around each other with a period of about 80 years, while Proxima circles them with a period probably of millions of years. The brightest component star...
...to be the eruption of flares much larger than, but otherwise similar to, those observed on the Sun. Flare stars are sometimes called UV Ceti stars, from a prototype star in the constellation Cetus. Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the Sun, is a flare star. All known flare stars are red dwarfs; flares in intrinsically brighter stars are not presently detectable. In UV Ceti and a few others,...
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