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posted by janrinok on Tuesday September 06 2016, @04:33PM   Printer-friendly
from the say-cheese dept.

The closest star system to the Earth is the famous Alpha Centauri group. Located in the constellation of Centaurus (The Centaur), at a distance of 4.3 light-years, this system is made up of the binary formed by the stars Alpha Centauri A and Alpha Centauri B, plus the faint red dwarf Alpha Centauri C, also known as Proxima Centauri.

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has given us this stunning view of the bright Alpha Centauri A (on the left) and Alpha Centauri B (on the right), flashing like huge cosmic headlamps in the dark. The image was captured by the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2). WFPC2 was Hubble's most used instrument for the first 13 years of the space telescope's life, being replaced in 2009 by WFC3 during Servicing Mission 4. This portrait of Alpha Centauri was produced by observations carried out at optical and near-infrared wavelengths.


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  • (Score: 5, Funny) by Kromagv0 on Tuesday September 06 2016, @05:38PM

    by Kromagv0 (1825) on Tuesday September 06 2016, @05:38PM (#398206) Homepage

    Who let JJ Abrams use Hubble?

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