The location of Alpha Centauri in Centaurus constellationĪlpha Centauri is circumpolar south of latitude 29°S, which means that it never sets below the horizon for observers in those latitudes. The name Rigil Kent, or Rigil Kentaurus, is the romanization of the Arabic Rijl Qanṭūris, derived from the phrase Rijl al-Qanṭūris, meaning “the foot of the Centaur.” The star marks the foot of the centaur represented by Centaurus constellation.Īlpha Centauri’s other proper name, Toliman, may come from the Arabic al-Ẓulmān, which means “the ostriches.”
The estimated age of the Alpha Centauri system is between 4.5 and 7 billion years, which makes the stars slightly older than the Sun. There is still no direct evidence that Proxima has an elliptical orbit, which is typical of binary star systems. If it were visible to the unaided eye, Proxima Centauri would appear as a separate star, not as part of the Alpha Centauri system. The distance is about four times the angular diameter of the full Moon and roughly half the distance from Alpha to Beta Centauri. The system may have a third component, Alpha Centauri C (Proxima Centauri), which is believed to be associated with the binary system, but is located an an angular separation of 2.2° to the south-west of Alpha Centauri AB, at a distance much greater than that between components A and B. Alpha Centauri is the closest star system to the Solar System. The star appears so big just because of the scattering of light by the telescope’s optics as well as in the photographic emulsion. This wide-field view of the sky around the bright star Alpha Centauri was created from photographic images forming part of the Digitized Sky Survey 2.
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