Procyon

bright star · binary system · nearby

Super bright neighbor. Procyon is the eighth-brightest star in the night sky, and you can spot it in the constellation Canis Minor. It's so close to Earth at just 11.46 light-years away that it counts as one of our nearest stellar neighbors.

Two stars together. Procyon isn't just one star, it's a binary system with two stars orbiting each other. The main star is a yellow-white star, while its partner is a much smaller and fainter white dwarf.

Cosmic dance partner. The two stars take 40.84 years to complete one full orbit around each other. Their path is kind of lopsided, which means sometimes they get closer and sometimes they drift farther apart.