What is the nearest star to the earth?

The nearest star to the earth is the sun. The sun is the only star in the solar system and the closest star to the earth.

If the sun is not counted, the nearest star is proxima centauri (αC Centauri), which is a red dwarf star with a magnitude of 10.6. It is 4.20 light years away, which is equivalent to 264,600 astronomical units (one light year is equivalent to 63,000 astronomical units), which is 264,600 times the distance from the earth to the sun. It can be seen that compared with the sun, other stars are far away from the earth and the sun.

The earth where human beings live is an ordinary member of the solar system, and the sun is an ordinary star in the Milky Way. There are about 1000 billion stars in the Milky Way. The closest star to our solar system is called proxima centauri, which is located in Centauri, 4.22 light years away from the sun. Light-year is an astronomical distance unit, which refers to the distance traveled by light in one year, which is about 9,460.5 billion kilometers. 4.22 light years is equivalent to 399.233 billion kilometers.

So far, the fastest spaceship launched by human beings is Voyager, with a speed of 52,000 kilometers per hour. If you want to go to proxima centauri by Voyager, it will take 1.7 million years to go back and forth. With our short life, it is impossible to realize this wish at present. The size of the universe, though near, is far away.