Category: Friday Fun Facts

The closest actual star to our solar system is Proxima Centauri – you may have heard of this before. But did you know about the other bodies in the system?

Alpha Centauri, the star system, consists of three stars, Rigil Kentaurus (α Centauri A), Toliman (α Centauri B), and Proxima Centauri (α Centauri C).

Rigil Kentaurus & Toliman are Sun-like stars, (Class G and K respectively), that form a binary system α Centauri AB. Proxima Centauri is red dwarf (class M), that orbits the binary pair.

There are two confirmed planets, Proxima B, and Proxima D, similar in size to Earth, and a third “mini-Neptune”, Proxima C, is a disputed but possible third planet.

There was a proposed probe project, that’s presently been put on indefinite hold, named Breakthrough Starshot, which would’ve used Solar sails to get to 20% of the speed of light, which would’ve taken just 20 years to get the stars, 4.2 light years away.

Gliese-710 is a orangish 0.6 Solar Mass star, in the constellation Serpens Cauda. It is projected to pass near the Sun in about 1.29 million years at a predicted minimum distance of 10,520 AU (Earth orbits at 1AU). Being at this distance, it would be the same brightness as the brightest planets, getting a apparent visual magnitude of about -2.7. This will lead to a lot more comets being disturbed from the outer and inner Oort clouds, allowing at least 10 comets per year to be visible to the naked eye.

WASP-76b, a gas giant that is tidally locked, meaning it has one face that always faces its host star, around WASP-76, a star similar to our own, likely has raining iron. The hot side would be roughly 2400C, and the night side would be a “chilly” 1500c. Strong winds on the gas giant would lead to molten iron rain. It completes one full orbit around it’s star in only 43 hours! Mercury, the closest planet in our solar system, takes 88 days in comparison.