Robert Thorburn Ayton Innes FRSE FRAS was a British-born South African astronomer best known for discovering Proxima Centauri in 1915, and numerous binary stars. He was also the first astronomer to have seen the Great January Comet of 1910, on 12 January. He was the founding director of a meteorological observatory in Johannesburg, which was later converted to an astronomical observatory and renamed to Union Observatory. He was the first Union Astronomer. Innes House, designed by Herbert Baker, built as his residence at the observatory, today houses the South African Institute of Electrical Engineers.
Image: Robert Thorburn Ayton Innes 00
Proxima Centauri is a small, low-mass star located 4.2465 light-years (1.3020 pc) away from the Sun in the southern constellation of Centaurus. Its Latin name means the 'nearest [star] of Centaurus'. It was discovered in 1915 by Robert Innes and is the nearest-known star to the Sun. With a quiescent apparent magnitude of 11.13, it is too faint to be seen with the unaided eye. Proxima Centauri is a member of the Alpha Centauri star system, being identified as component Alpha Centauri C, and is 2.18° to the southwest of the Alpha Centauri AB pair. It is currently 12,950 AU (0.2 ly) from AB, which it orbits with a period of about 550,000 years.
False color Hubble Space Telescope WFPC2 image taken in 2013. The bright lines are diffraction spikes.
Alpha Centauri A and B are the bright apparent star to the left, which are in a triple star system with Proxima Centauri, circled in red. The bright star system to the right is the unrelated Beta Centauri.
Schematic of the three planets (d, b and c) of the Proxima Centauri system, with the habitable zone identified
Overview and comparison of the orbital distance of the habitable zone.
