What are the closest stars to Earth, and just how far away are they?
When we look up at the night sky, the stars appear as tiny, twinkling lights scattered across a vast darkness.
But in reality, those pinpricks of light are enormous spheres of glowing gas, many of them far larger and more powerful than our Sun.
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While many stars we see in the night sky lie thousands of lightyears away, a handful of our stellar neighbours sit relatively close on the cosmic scale.
Astronomers have spent centuries measuring their distances, using clever techniques like parallax (watching how a star’s position shifts as Earth orbits the Sun) to map out our corner of the galaxy.
The closest stars to Earth provide essential clues about how stars form, evolve, and host planets.
Our Sun’s nearest neighbours include cool red dwarfs, multi-star systems locked in orbital dances and even stars invisible to the naked eye but revealed through telescopes.
In this article, we’ll take a tour of the 10 closest stars to Earth, not including the Sun (which is, of course, the closest star to Earth because it's the star we orbit).
This a neighbourhood map of the Milky Way, showing just how varied and fascinating our nearest stellar companions really are.
Alpha Centauri
- Distance: 4.3 lightyears
- Constellation: Centaurus
- Magnitude: –0.27
- AKA: Proxima Centauri, Rigil Kentaurus, Toliman
Alpha Centauri is a triple star system consisting of three main sequence stars, and these are the closest stars to Earth after the Sun.
G-class Alpha Centauri A and K-class B form a tight double, with the dim (mag. 11.09) M-class Alpha Centauri C – a red dwarf – orbiting the pair at a slightly greater distance.
It’s the latter that’s actually THE closest star to Earth, at a distance of just 4.2465 lightyears, which is why it’s also known as Proxima Centauri.
But if we listed the three components individually they’d make up our top three, with Alpha Centauri A (aka Kentaurus) and Alpha Centauri B (aka Toliman) sitting 4.3441 lightyears from Earth.
There are three known exoplanets around Proxima Centauri, and in August 2025, astronomers announced the James Webb Space Telescope found evidence of a planet around Alpha Centauri A and B.
Barnard's Star
- Distance: 5.96 lightyears
- Constellation: Ophiuchus
- Magnitude: +9.5
- AKA: Proxima Ophiuchi
Brighter in the infrared than it is in visible light, dim red dwarf Barnard's Star has been much observed due to its proximity to Earth and the fact that it’s well placed for observation, sitting almost right on the celestial equator.
It hosts at least four exoplanets. Barnard b was confirmed in 2024, while Barnard c, d and e were confirmed in 2025.
Wolf 359
- Distance: 7.8 lightyears
- Constellation: Leo
- Magnitude: +13.4
- AKA: CN Leonis
Wolf 359, another dim M-class main sequence star, is also a flare star, which means it gives off flares just like those we see emanating from our own Sun and so occasionally becomes much brighter for a few minutes.
For this reason, it's classed as a variable star.
It hosts no confirmed exoplanets but there is one candidate under investigation. It also has a certain fame in sci-fi circles, having been the setting for an epic battle with the Borg in ‘Star Trek: The Next Generation’.
Lalande 21185
- Distance: 8.3 lightyears
- Constellation: Ursa Major
- Magnitude: +7.5
- AKA: Gliese 411, HD 95735
Yes, it’s another red dwarf, but a bright one – the brightest in the northern hemisphere, in fact! So you should easily be able to see it through a small telescope, and even binoculars might do the trick.
At time of writing, two exoplanets have been confirmed while a third candidate is currently being examined.
Sirius
- Distance: 8.6 lightyears
- Constellation: Canis Major
- Magnitude: –1.46
- AKA: Alpha Canis Majoris, the Dog Star
One of the best-known stars in the night sky, because it’s the brightest. But Sirius – or the Dog Star, as it’s also known – is actually two stars. Its light comes from the A-type main sequence star Sirius A, but Sirius A has a companion: the mag. +8.4 white dwarf Sirius B.
Sirius has no known exoplanets, but give it a chance – it’s only 200-300 million years old, having birthed around the time that dinosaurs lived on Earth.
Gliese 65
- Distance: 8.7 lightyears
- Constellation: Cetus
- Magnitude: +12.5-13
- AKA: Luyten 726; UV Ceti and BL Ceti
Gliese 65 is a very faint double comprising two near-identical M-type stars that orbit each other at an average distance of around 5.5 AU (where 1 AU is the distance between Earth and the Sun) and was completely unknown until the 1940s.
Both are flare stars but UV Ceti is the more volatile of the two – in fact, flare stars are sometimes known as ‘UV Ceti variables’. No exoplanets have been confirmed but there is at least one candidate in the vicinity of each of the two stars.
Ross 154
- Distance: 9.7 lightyears
- Constellation: Sagittarius
- Magnitude: +10.43
- AKA: V1216 Sagittarii
Another red dwarf, Ross 154 was first observed by US astronomer Frank Elmore Ross in 1925. It’s also a flare star, so can sometimes be seen shining much more brightly for brief spells, but you’ll still need a telescope to find it.
Fun fact: Ross 154 was also the alias used by Dutch DJ/producer Jochem Peteri for a string of ambient and techno releases in the late 90s/early 00s.
Ross 248
- Distance: 10.3 lightyears
- Constellation: Andromeda
- Magnitude: +12.3
- AKA: Glies 905, HH Andromedaa
As you’ve probably guessed from the name, we have Frank Elmore Ross to thank for the discovery of this M-type main sequence star (red dwarf), too.
It’s very small (around 14 per cent of the Sun’s mass) and we don’t know a great deal about it, but Voyager 2 will be passing within 1.7 lightyears of it in about 42,000 years, if you can wait that long!
Epsilon Eridani
- Distance: 10.5 lightyears
- Constellation: Eridanus
- Magnitude: +3.73
- AKA: Ran
Less than a billion years old, Epsilon Eridani is a K-type main sequence star and a naked-eye object as seen from Earth.
It hosts one confirmed exoplanet, but it’s also encircled by a debris disc with several gaps in it – suggesting there may be more exoplanets lurking in Epsilon Eridani’s vicinity just waiting to be discovered.
Gliese 887
- Distance: 10.7 lightyears
- Constellation: Piscis Austrinus
- Magnitude: +7.34
- AKA: Lacaille 9352, HD 217987
An M-type main sequence star that you’ll need a telescope to observe, Gliese 887 is known to host at least two exoplanets, both in the ‘super-Earth’ category.
A third candidate planet is currently under investigation and some believe there may be a much larger, possibly gas giant planet sitting a little further out.
Have you photographed any of our list of closest stars to Earth? Send them to us via contactus@skyatnightmagazine.com
