Talk:Alpha Centauri

This article is written in British English with Oxford spelling (colour, realize, organization, analyse; note that -ize is used instead of -ise) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus.

Alpha Centauri Bc was nominated for deletion. The discussion was closed on 1 May 2016 with a consensus to merge. Its contents were merged into Alpha Centauri. The original page is now a redirect to this page. For the contribution history and old versions of the redirected article, please see its history; for its talk page, see here.

Alpha Centauri was nominated as a good article, but it did not meet the good article criteria at the time (May 6, 2018). There are suggestions on the review page for improving the article. If you can improve it, please do; it may then be renominated.

Archives

Index 1, 2, 3

This page has archives. Sections older than 180 days may be automatically archived by when more than 8 sections are present.

Distance

Based on the new parallax (2021), shouldn't the distance be corrected to 4,344?--McBayne (talk) 20:44, 6 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Semi-Protection request

Expiration date: indefinite

Reason 1: High-risk page

Reason 2: This is one of the most famous star systems.

--2600:1700:6180:6290:B035:F1A4:CC25:7A4C (talk) 23:54, 16 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Split request

This page is getting too long, so can someone fell free to split it up, by the following:

Thanks! --2600:1700:6180:6290:7D89:F761:BBA0:74D1 (talk) 20:22, 20 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. Similar to your request at Talk:Solar System. By the way, I removed your extraneous "Other" section header. Tarl N. (discuss) 04:24, 21 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Long articles can easily be scrolled, there is no real reason to split it into smaller parts. Artem.G (talk) 06:04, 21 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Proxima Centauri c & d

are these planets confirmed or not. i see them in lists like list of closest exoplanets and list of multiplanetary systems as if they are confirmed and also in the aplha centauri & proxima centauri articles. but in the pages themselves they are apparently "controversial" (c) and a candidate only (d). c is "not formally confirmed" but "existence is undisputed" according to this article but apparently there is one source disputing it in c's article.

this is opposed to candidate 1 which is just a candidate and pretty clearly defined as such everywhere through its absence from the above exoplanet lists and also it has a "?" marker in the alpha centauri template.

i've tried looking in the talks sections of all the directly related articles; i found 2 discussions on proxima centauri and proxima centauri c, but they are all from 1+ year ago and thus cant incorporate the 2022 source disputing c (but both discussions say it's a candidate). d is conflictingly claimed to be confirmed and candidate on proxima centauri and its own article repsectively, both using the same sources to say different things

(it also doesn't help that idk how a planent would be "formally" confirmed...is it just 1 other group of scientists saying "yeh this checks out" or "i see the same pattern here"? or if "general consensus" is needed, what is the definition of that? or how mny independent investigations/confirmations are needed)

I'm probably misunderstanding something here so just wanted to make sure before doing any changes on multiple articles and that template.

Sbznpoe (talk) 01:29, 31 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, as you mention, Proxima c has recently been disputed. I would say that Proxima d is confirmed (and it's described as such in the same recent paper), but I wouldn't want to start another argument about a planet's confirmation status. It's always possible that further observations might cast doubt on it in the future, as happened with planet c. SevenSpheres (talk) 15:15, 11 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Chimera article

I think that this article is a chimera of trying to describe Alpha Centauri AB system and the whole Alpha Centauri system (with Proxima Centauri) as a whole. We should split off Alpha Centauri A and Alpha Centauri B into its own article, and only talk about the whole system with a summary of individual stars in this article. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 06:54, 25 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Second binary discovered?

Article currently says "Alpha Centauri was only the second binary star to be discovered, preceded by Acrux." with a source. I have not checked the source but I have concerns that whatever the source says, it doesn't seem to be correct. Binary star and Mizar suggests Mizar was discovered first before even Acrux. If my read is correct, Mizar was discovered as a binary sometime earlier in the 17th century via telescope and it's undisputed this is Mizar rather than Mizar and Alcor. Of course, technically we now know Mizar is not a binary star since it has four compononents but nor is Acrux which has 6. If there is some reason why this is still argued to be correct e.g. because parts of Acrux could be called a binary but nothing of Mizar, IMO this needs clarification at least via footnote which would probably also explain why Alpha Centauri itself is counted. Nil Einne (talk) 10:36, 29 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm yes, Mizar A and B were distinguished in 1617. This was only recently discovered in Galileo's notebooks. Further reading. But double star cites that Battista Riccioli knew by 1650, before Acrux was known to be so. DAVilla (talk) 11:54, 23 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Circled in red?

"Alpha Centauri AB (left) forms a triple star system with Proxima Centauri, circled in red." I don't see anything circled. Similarly where the same photo is used on Proxima Centauri. Image is unchanged since 2016. DAVilla (talk) 11:41, 23 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There is a circle. is just hard to see 87.52.110.156 (talk) 22:08, 1 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Proxima Centauri‘s circumstellar disk

Proxima Centauri has a Circumstellar disc

https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2018ApJ...855L...2M/abstract https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017ApJ...850L...6A/abstract https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/proxima-centauris-dust-belt-hints-at-more-planets Fredeee335 (talk) 22:14, 1 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

See Proxima Centauri#Planetary system where this is discussed. There most likely is not a disk according to the 2018 paper you linked. SevenSpheres (talk) 22:21, 1 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Oh ok Fredeee335 (talk) 20:01, 2 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]