Proxima Centauri, the closest star to Earth after the Sun, is approximately 4.24 to 4.25 light-years away from us. This distance translates to about 40 trillion kilometers (around 24.9 trillion miles) or roughly 268,550 to 269,000 astronomical units (AU), where 1 AU is the average distance from Earth to the Sun
. To put it in perspective, light, which travels at about 300,000 kilometers per second, takes a little over 4 years to reach us from Proxima Centauri. This immense distance means that even traveling at the speed of the fastest human-made spacecraft, such as the Parker Solar Probe, it would take thousands of years to reach Proxima Centauri
. In summary:
- Distance: ~4.24 - 4.25 light-years
- Equivalent to: ~40 trillion kilometers or ~269,000 AU
- Travel time at current spacecraft speeds: thousands to tens of thousands of years
This makes Proxima Centauri our nearest stellar neighbor but still incredibly far away by human travel standards
