However, despite not being easily visible, its nearness has allowed
astronomers to study it in greater detail than most any other star.
Proxima Centauri’s diameter has been measured directly to be 1/7
that of our Sun, and it has 1/8 of the mass that our Sun has.
Little ol’ Proxima is what is known as a late-type red dwarf star
of spectral class M5.5.
As insignificant as Proxima is compared to many other splendors
and wonders in the universe, Proxima will out-live them all. Given
it’s low mass, and it’s low energy output, Proxima is burning its
reservoir of fuel so slowly that it will last another four
trillion years before it starts to fade away. That is 300
times longer than the current age of the known universe!
Now, given Proxima’s low energy output and low mass, it has a
rather energetic magnetic field created by convection within the
body of the star. This magnetic field allows Proxima to
periodically “flare”, growing brighter for a brief moment, and
generating a total X-Ray emission similar to that of our Sun. This
makes any prospects for wanting to live near there, mmmm, a wee bit
less than ideal.
As close as Proxima is to us, it is still extremely far at our
current level of space travel technology. The absolute fastest a
manned vehicle has ever flown occurred back on May 26, 1959 when
the crew of Apollo 10 (Stafford, Young, & Cernan) managed to
achieve the highest speed relative to Earth - 39,896 kilometers per
hour (that’s 24,790 mph, or 0.000037 times the speed of light).
Even at that speed it would take around 110,000 years before
reaching Proxima Centauri. However, you can make this journey much
faster if you travel from The Sun Cache (GC10HDR) to this cache – a
direct line distance of 4.2 miles! Traveling between these two
caches, you can now go faster than the speed of light, whether
driving, bicycling, or even walking!
The cache you are seeking is a small tupperware container, with
a logbook and a few space-related trade items. Please if possible
try to keep to a space-related theme if you want to make trades or
drop anything off (except geocoins and small TBs; they are always
welcome to stop here). There is no pen in the cache, so please
remember to bring your own!
And reconceal once again as best as possible when you are done!
Thanks...