Stars · Star
The nearest star to the Sun is a small, cool red dwarf. Its calculated colour is a deep orange.
Featured palette: Calculated blackbody colour at 3,050 K (Calculated from this model)
#FFB970
#FFB970About Proxima Centauri
Proxima Centauri is a red dwarf with an effective temperature of only about 3,050 K, around 0.1% of the Sun’s luminosity. It is part of the Alpha Centauri system.
| Classification | Star |
|---|---|
| In the system of | Alpha Centauri A |
| Identifiers | α Centauri C |
| Spectral type | M5.5Vespectral type (SIMBAD NAME Proxima Centauri; ref 1991AJ....101..662B) · CDS, Strasbourg |
| Effective temperature | 3,050 K approximate (“about 3050 K”)effective temperature (photosphere) · Nature / arXiv |
| Distance | 4.20 light-years ± 0.00028 light-yearsdistance from parallax 768.067 ± 0.0499 mas (SIMBAD; ref 2020yCat.1350....0G) · CDS, Strasbourg |
Why these colours?
A cool red dwarf
At about 3,050 K, a blackbody is a deep orange in chromaticity. Proxima is far too faint to see without a telescope.
From: Calculated blackbody colour at 3,050 K Calculated visible-colour model
Colour clusters describe pixels in an image; they cannot identify a mineral, a gas or a physical temperature. Shares of pixels describe the sampled region of the image, not the object’s surface.
Colours from selected views
Palettes sampled from identified images and regions, or calculated from a documented model. These values describe each image or model, not one permanent colour of Proxima Centauri.
Calculated blackbody colour at 3,050 K
Calculated from this model · Calculated blackbody colour at 3,050 K
#FFB970RGB 255, 185, 112region average
See where these colours came from
Creative palettes inspired by Proxima Centauri
A design derived from the selected representation. It is not a scientific colour measurement. Each colour keeps the sampled colour it was made from.
Red Dwarf
Inspired by this object
#5E3704RGB 94, 55, 4from #FFB970#9B6016RGB 155, 96, 22from #FFB970#D98F3ARGB 217, 143, 58from #FFB970
Proxima’s calculated orange deepened into a dusky red.
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Every palette above opens in the palette generator. With JavaScript you can also add colours to your cosmic palette, save them, make a gradient or pattern, preview them in a design or a room (you choose which colour goes on which surface), check digital accessibility and export them. Each colour keeps the view and sample it came from.
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Questions about Proxima Centauri’s colours
Can I see Proxima Centauri?
Not with the naked eye: it is very faint. Its colour here is calculated from its temperature.
Sources
- A terrestrial planet candidate in a temperate orbit around Proxima Centauri (Anglada-Escudé et al. 2016, Nature 536, 437) — Nature / arXiv
- Stars in an Exoplanet World — NASA
- CIE 1931 2° colour-matching functions (CIE 018:2019, Table 6) — CIE
- SIMBAD astronomical database — CDS, Strasbourg
Image credits
Images were resized once for the web; colours were measured from the published files (k-means in OKLab, pcke-oklab-kmeans-1); calculated colours use the CIE 1931 2° observer. Facts last reviewed 25 October 2026. Catalogue pcke-cosmos-2026-10-25, page revision 7df698fb3b9b. No ESA, ESO or NASA endorsement is implied.