The stars we see in the night's sky are other suns outside our solar system. The light travelling from these stars takes many years to reach Earth.

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Our nearest star system is called Alpha Centauri, which consists of 3 suns (Proxima Centauri, Alpha Centauri A and Alpha Centauri B). 

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Proxima Centauri, the closest star to our own, is still 39,900,000,000,000 km away. We measure these huge distances in light years (how many years it takes for light to travel that far). A light year is equivalent to 9,460,000,000,000km.

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Alpha Centauri A & B are roughly 4.35 light years away from us. Proxima Centauri is slightly closer at 4.22 light years.

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