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How far from Earth is Proxima Centauri in light-years?

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Diagram illustrating how astronomers calculate the distance to a star using parallax: Earth is shown in two positions on opposite sides of its orbit around the Sun, with lines extending to a nearby star X and further to distant background stars. The apparent shift in star X's position, measured as angle A, is used to determine its distance, with the baseline labeled as 186,000,000 miles. — Parallax Calculating stellar distances.

Proxima Centauri is located approximately 4.2 to 4.24 light-years from Earth.123

In the context of parallax, astronomers determine this distance by measuring the star's shift against background stars as Earth orbits the Sun. Proxima Centauri has a parallax of approximately 0.769 to 0.77 arc seconds. Because the distance to a star in parsecs is the reciprocal of its parallax in arc seconds, this measurement confirms a distance of about 1.30 parsecs, which is equivalent to roughly 4.24 light-years.24