Proxima Centauri, also knownn as Alpha Centauri C or Proxima, was a star system in the Beta Quadrant. This was the closest star to Sol.
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Stellar system[]
Alpha Centauri was a trinary star system. It was organized into a single star system and a binary star system.
For the binary star system, see Alpha Centauri.
This was a single star system. The primary star Proxima Centauri (the proper name for Alpha Centauri C) was a red dwarf. (ENT: "Cold Front"; TNG: "The Naked Now", "The Last Outpost", production art)
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History[]
Being the closest star to Sol, the Proxima Centauri system was among the first to be explored by Humans after they had developed warp flight in the late 21st century. (TOS: "Return to Tomorrow")
Stellar cartography[]
The Proxima Centauri system was visible from Earth in the constellation Centaurus. This system was approximately 4 light years from Sol.
In the 2150s, this system's position was labeled on an United Earth star chart which was displayed in several crew and guest quarters aboard the Enterprise. (Star Trek: Enterprise, set decoration)
In 2259, the location of this system was labeled on a stellar cartography chart that was seen on the USS Enterprise's ready room viewscreen. This star's symbol had a blue color, indicating that it was affiliated with the United Federation of Planets. (SNW: "Strange New Worlds", "Spock Amok", "A Quality of Mercy")
On stardate 1292.4, the location of this system was labeled in a chart used during a Section 31 Alpha Team briefing. (Star Trek: Section 31)
In 2364, the location of Proxima Centauri was labeled in a star chart of a stellar neighborhood with Sol at the center. This chart was stored in the USS Enterprise-D library computer. Later that year, the chart was scanned by Outpost 63. (TNG: "The Naked Now", "The Last Outpost", production art)
The system's location was labeled in a Federation star chart that was in Fleet Admiral Kirsten Clancy's office at Starfleet Headquarters in 2399 and on the bridge of the USS Titan-A in 2401. Proxima Centauri was in or near to Federation space. (PIC: "Maps and Legends", "The Next Generation", "Disengage")
In 2401, the location of Proxima was labeled on a star chart that was seen on the USS Stargazer's bridge viewscreen. The chart was used to show the location of the combined Starfleet-Borg armada and where it needed to go to face a galactic-level threat. (PIC: "Farewell")
Some years later, Proxima's position was labeled on a star chart used by Captain William T. Riker during his attempt at finding the last known location of the SS Eleos XII. (PIC: "The Next Generation")
In 3190, the location of Proxima was labeled on a star chart used by Commander Paul Stamets for tracking the movement of the Dark Matter Anomaly through the galaxy. (DIS: "The Examples")
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Background information[]
The Star Trek Encyclopedia, 4th ed., vol. 2, p. 187 classified Proxima Centauri as a red dwarf.
This star's quadrant of origin was inferred based on the position of its star system as seen in the star chart appearing in the Star Trek: Picard episode "Maps and Legends".
Apparently in an early draft script of TOS: "Wolf in the Fold", a Human colony established before 2156 was referenced as Alpha Proxima II, possibly intended as a planet in this system. The name was later replaced as Alpha Eridani II in the final episode. The Alpha Proxima II name, however, survived in such reference works as Star Trek Maps, Star Trek Concordance, the entry on StarTrek.com, and Star Trek Encyclopedia, 3rd ed., p. 8. [1](X)
A certificate naming the Proxima Centauri Interplanetary Bowling League was created for TNG: "The Schizoid Man", but did not end up being used on screen. It was included in Star Trek: The Next Generation - The Continuing Mission (p. 76).
The chart naming stars within twenty light years of Sol was drawn by Rick Sternbach for the Star Trek Spaceflight Chronology (p. 77) in the late 1970s. This chart showed Earth commercial and exploration routes after the use of warp drive began. There were no commercial or exploration routes to Alpha Centauri C.
Further information on this system could be had from the Star Trek: Star Charts (pp. 19, 45, and 56) and the Stellar Cartography: The Starfleet Reference Library ("Federation Historical Highlights, 2161-2385"). The Proxima Centauri system was located in the Alpha Centauri sector (Sector 002). The fourth planet in this system, which was named Proxima, or Velestus, was inhabited largely by Humans and had two moons named Nykos and Tharon. The Proxima colony was founded on this planet in 2085. In 2161, this planet was a founding member of the UFP. In 2378, the capital cities of this world were Cochrane and Tarola'n and the planet had a population of 300 million.
The star chart seen in the series Star Trek: Enterprise made its first appearance in Crewman Daniels quarters in "Cold Front". It was also seen in several other episodes of the series, from 2151 to 2154. (For more information, see Federation star charts#United Earth Alpha/Beta star chart)
In a real-world corollary to Star Trek's depictions, the discovery of an exoplanet orbiting Proxima Centauri, named Proxima Centauri b (lower case letters were used by Earth cosmologists in the early 21st century for planets orbiting a star) was announced in August 2016, by the European Southern Observatory from one of their South American observatories, by a team led by Guillem Anglada-Escudé. [2]
Adding further to this real-world analogy, later discoveries in the early 21st century suggested there could be two more planets in this star system. One, a cold planet in a further out orbit, was designated Proxima Centauri c. [3] The other, from a signal that was less well defined and so only seen as a potential candidate exoplanet, orbited inward of Proxima Centauri b. [4] So, Proxima Centauri b, just like Alpha Proxima II in the Star Trek universe, began to look like it actually was the second planet orbiting out from its star. In 2020, astronomers discovered a third planet, Proxima Centauri d. This planet, slightly smaller than Earth, lay close to its sun and was not considered habitable.
The current location of Proxima Centauri in the Beta Quadrant was based on the most recent star charts seen in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds and Star Trek: Section 31.
External links[]
- Proxima Centauri at Memory Beta, the wiki for licensed Star Trek works
- Proxima Centauri at Wikipedia
- Proxima Centauri at the Internet Stellar Database
- Proxima Centauri at ExtraSolar.net
- PlanetQuest at NASA.gov