Proxima Centauri is the nearest known star to the Sun, just over four light-years away. ESA describes it as a flare star prone to dramatic brightening, yet because it burns fuel so slowly it may remain on the main sequence for another four trillion years.
Scale Comparison
The Sun is about 6.5 times the diameter of Proxima Centauri, the nearest known star beyond it.
Proxima has only about one-eighth of the Sun’s mass and radiates far less visible light. Red dwarfs like it are nevertheless the most common kind of star in the Milky Way.
Objects
Object details and sources
The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System and the source of almost all the energy reaching its planets. It fuses about 600 million metric tons of hydrogen each second, and energy released in the core takes on the order of 100,000 years to work its way out to the visible surface.
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About
Scale of Space is a scroll-based journey through the universe, placing objects on a single logarithmic scale so you can compare size across an unbroken range.
Guides explain selected parts of that range, while focused views filter the objects by subject.