How far away would Proxima Centauri be from the Sun?

The diameter of the Sun is 1.4 multiplied by 1011 cm, and the distance to the nearest star, Proxima Centauri, is 4.2 ly. Suppose you want to build an exact scale model of the Sun and Proxima Centauri, and you are using a basketball 20 cm in diameter to represent the Sun. In your scale model, how far away would Proxima Centauri be from the Sun?

Answer 1

4.22 light years (LY). Proxima Cetauri is incredibly close to Alpha Centauri A and Alpha Centauri B. The average of the distances of this triad (that appears as a single star) is 4.3 LY.

Alpha Centauri is the nearest bright star; reference: earthsky.org/brighteststars/alpha centauri. Proxima is fainter than bright alpha A and Alpha B.

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Answer 2

Lydia Allen

Proxima Centauri is approximately 4.24 light-years away from the Sun.

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Answer from HIX Tutor

When evaluating a one-sided limit, you need to be careful when a quantity is approaching zero since its sign is different depending on which way it is approaching zero from. Let us look at some examples.