Alpha Centauri is the nearest star from our Sun and it is located in constellation Centaurus. In fact Alpha Centauri is not one big star, but a formation of three stars located close to each other. The brightest one of those three stars is Rigil Centaurus, many times called just Rigil Cent. Alpha Centauri can only be seen in southern hemisphere and it is the third brightest star in the sky.

If you happen to live in southern hemisphere and would like to observe Alpha Centauri, use the following tips and the pictures above for finding Alpha Centauri. The pictures above are from a simulation in which observer is located in Sydney, Australia.

- wait until it is midnight because at that time it is dark enough and Alpha Centauri is positioned high in the sky

- look at the first picture and stand your face towards South. With the help of the picture, locate the two well-known constellations, namely Triangulum Australe and Crux.

- next locate constellation Centaurus which is located in between and above those two mentioned constellations.

- look at the second picture and imagine a line crossing Triangulum Australe and a diagonal from the cross of Crux. By using those two lines you should easily be able to locate the very bright star Alpha Centauri

You found it? Great! Isn’t it bright? Alpha Centauri is a nice star to observe. Unfortunately I cannot see it here in northern hemisphere, but if I ever fly to Sydney or other cities in southern hemisphere, I’ll shoot some pictures of Alpha Centauri.

Please tell us if this tip was helpful or not by leaving a comment. Do you have a better method to locate Alpha Centauri? You are free to write it to comments. I would be glad to hear other methods to find Alpha Centauri.

According to a recent publication, there can be an Earth-like planet in Alpha Centauri, which is a popular destination for interstellar travel in works of science fiction. This possible Earth-like rocky planet would be located in Alpha Centauri, which is only in four million light years away from us. The claim is based on computer simulations according to which “terrestrial planets are likely to have formed around the star Alpha Centauri B and to be orbiting in the “habitable zone” where liquid water can exist on the planet’s surface”. Being located in the “habitable zone” means that on the surface of n Earth-like planet water could be liquid. By this the the probability of life increases dramatically.

“I think the planets are there, and it’s worth a try to have a look,” says Gregory Laughlin, professor of astronomy and astrophysics at UCSC as well as a coauthor of this study. Finding a small rocky planet is a big challenge, but finding the planet should be possible with the telescopes we have nowadays. Anyhow, most probably we would need observations from a number of years.

Read more about this interesting study in UC Santa Cruz website.

Image source.