Alpha Centauri System
Distance from earth: Approximately 4.37 light years
Alpha Centauri, the brightest "star" in the constellation of centaurus, when seen through a telescope, is, in fact, three stars orbiting around one another. This triple star system consists of two Sun-like stars, Alpha Centauri A and Alpha Centauri B, and a red dwarf, Alpha Centauri C, or Proxima Centauri.
The three gas giant planets orbiting Alpha Centauri B were discovered by terrestrial observatories. The five rocky planets were found two decades later. Since the arrangement of the planets resembled our own solar system, they were named for their counterparts: Vulcan (inside Mercury's orbit), Hermes (Mercury), Aphrodite (Venus), Gaea (Earth), Ares (Mars), Zeus (Jupiter), Cronus (Saturn), and Poseidon (chosen instead of another name for Uranus, because it occupies the equivalent of Neptune's orbit).
The three gas giants around ACA were not found until after the co-orbiting synchronized telescopic interferometer network (COSTIN) went into full operation. Upon their discovery they were named Oceanus, Coeus, and Crius. Coeus was later renamed, or perhaps nicknamed, Polyphemus .
Alpha Centauri is a trinary star system, and Earth's closest stellar neighbor outside the solar system.
Its largest member, Alpha Centauri A (or "ACA" to astronomers), is about twenty-percent larger than our Sun, but otherwise very similar. ACA would be unremarkable were it not for the fact that it serves as the Sun for Pandora, a large moon that orbits Polyphemus. It was on Pandora that explorers encountered the Na'vi, the only intelligent species yet discovered in outer space. Pandora is also the only known source for Unobtanium, a high temperature superconductor essential for many of Earth's technologies.
more after the jump
