INSIGHT UPSC QUIZ

ANS. (C) 
As the nearest star from our Solar System, Proximal Centauri is a prime candidate for future interstellar travel and space colonization missions. Proxima Centauri is a red dwarf star about 4.24 light- years distant inside the G-cloud in the constellation of Centaurus. It was discovered in 1915 by Robert Innes, the Director of the Union Observatory in South Africa, and is the nearest known star to the Sun, although it is too faint to be seen with the naked eye. Because of the proximity of this star, its distance from the Sun and angular diameter can be measured directly, from which it can be determined that its diameter is about one-seventh of that of the Sun. Proximal Centauri’s mass is about an eighth of the Sun’s, and its average density is about 40 times that of the Sun.