Robert Thorburn Ayton Innes FRSE FRAS (10 November 1861 – 13 March 1933) 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.
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👉 Robert T. A. Innes in the context of Proxima Centauri
Proxima Centauri, the nearest star to Earth after the Sun, is located 4.25 light-years (1.3 parsecs) away in the southern constellation of Centaurus. Discovered in 1915 by Robert Innes, it is a small, low-mass star, too faint to be seen with the naked eye, with an apparent magnitude of 11.13. 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. Its Latin name means the 'nearest star of Centaurus'.
Proxima Centauri is a red dwarf star with a mass about 12.5% of the Sun's mass (M☉), and average density about 33 times that of the Sun. Because of Proxima Centauri's proximity to Earth, its angular diameter can be measured directly. Its actual diameter is about one-seventh (14%) the diameter of the Sun. Although it has a very low average luminosity, Proxima Centauri is a flare star that randomly undergoes dramatic increases in brightness because of magnetic activity. The star's magnetic field is created by convection throughout the stellar body, and the resulting flare activity generates a total X-ray emission similar to that produced by the Sun. The internal mixing of its fuel by convection through its core and Proxima's relatively low energy-production rate, mean that it will be a main-sequence star for another four trillion years.