What is the name of the nearest star?

Suppose someone asks you to name the nearest star; what should you answer? If that’s all they ask, the correct answer is “the Sun,” because the Sun is a star and it is much closer to us than any of the stars we see in the night sky. But if you are asked for the nearest star besides the Sun, the answer is a little complicated. The nearest “star” in the night sky is called Alpha Centauri; its name means it is the brightest (“alpha”) star in the constellation called Centaurus. But we put “star” in quotes because Alpha Centauri is actually three stars: two that orbit each other fairly closely, called Alpha Centauri A and Alpha Centauri B, and a third that is a little bit closer to us, called Proxima Centauri. So in answering the question of the nearest star besides the Sun, the correct answer can be either Proxima Centauri if you want the name of the nearest individual star or Alpha Centauri if you want to name the nearest star system that we see in the night sky.