VLT and Alpha Cen.jpg

The Very Large Telescope in front of a backdrop of a starry sky, with Alpha Centauri marked. Yuri Beletsky/LCO/ESO To the naked eye, Alpha Centauri as a single bright star, but the system is actually made up of a pair of binary stars, Alpha Centauri A and Alpha Centauri B, plus the faint red dwarf Alpha Centauri C, also known as Proxima Centauri.