Field record · Astronomical geometry
Proxima Centauri: the nearest other star
Placed beside Proxima b because they belong to one system. Star and planet are related. They are not the same entity. Child sky and adult looking-up already differ.
This correspondence holds · Sources checked · 1915
Observed
- Robert Innes identified Proxima Centauri in 1915 as a faint star sharing proper motion with Alpha Centauri.
- It is the nearest known star to the Sun, at about 4.25 light-years.
- Wonder Atlas tells that star to a child as The Closest Other Star. It does not name the planet.
Connection
Placed beside Proxima b because they belong to one system. Star and planet are related. They are not the same entity. Child sky and adult looking-up already differ.
- Astronomical geometry
Interpretation
Nearness is a measurement. A children's story about the nearest spark is not a planet plate. Sitting them beside one another is an editorial act that must keep the difference visible.
Mechanism
Known mathematical. Distance and proper motion are measured. The editorial pairing with the planet, or with a canoe, is not a physical mechanism.
Open questions
What kind of rhyme is a nearest star to a planet no one has seen the ground of?
Read beside this
- Wonder AtlasThe Closest Other Star
Sources
- Robert Innes, 1915 · Identification of Proxima Centauri as a faint star sharing proper motion with Alpha Centauri.
- Wonder Atlas, The Closest Other Star · Child sky. The star. Not the planet.
Related records
Canonical plate. · Sources checked.