Alpha Centauri A
A near twin of the Sun, and the brightest component of the closest star system.
Where it is right now
Alpha Centauri A is in Centaurus, 276046.8 AU away.
Computed for 2 August 2026, 21:00 UTC, and recomputed at least hourly. This page is cached, so treat the line above as accurate to the hour rather than to the second. The map shows the live position.
Position from a Kepler propagation of the published elements below, accurate to about an arcminute.
Facts
Every line carries the source it came from.
- Distance
- 4.365 light years, about 276,000 AUSource: SIMBAD / Hipparcos, J2000 astrometry
- Type
- G2V, the same spectral class as the SunSource: SIMBAD / Hipparcos, J2000 astrometry
- Radius
- about 852,000 km, 1.22 times the Sun'sSource: SIMBAD / Hipparcos, J2000 astrometry
- Apparent magnitude
- minus 0.01, fourth brightest star in the night skySource: SIMBAD / Hipparcos, J2000 astrometry
- Binary period
- 79.9 years around Alpha Centauri BSource: SIMBAD / Hipparcos, J2000 astrometry
- Visibility
- southern skies only, never rises above about 29 degrees northSource: SIMBAD / Hipparcos, J2000 astrometry
Physical size
- Mean radius
- 852,000 km
- Diameter
- 1,704,000 km across
Orbit
Elements are heliocentric, referred to the J2000.0 ecliptic.
- Average distance from the Sun
- 276,047.0 AU
- Eccentricity
- 0.0000, almost perfectly circular
- Inclination to the ecliptic
- -42.59 degrees
- Orbital period
- 999.3 million years
- Longitude of ascending node
- 149.48 degrees
- Argument of periapsis
- 90.00 degrees
- Mean anomaly at J2000.0
- 0.00 degrees
Claim this body
$499 per year
Proxima Centauri and the Alpha Centauri pair. Opens when the map expands past the solar system. Leased annually.
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Catalog id alpha-centauri-a. 3,172 objects on the map, of which 171 are hand-authored with sourced facts.