What is the distance from Earth to Alpha Centauri?

Alpha Centauri is a binary star system that is 4.37 light years away. That is more than 25.6 trillion miles, or approximately 266,000 astronomical units, or AUs. One AU is equal to the average distance of Earth to its own sun.

Light takes slightly longer than 8 minutes to reach Earth from its sun, but the light from Alpha Centauri takes over four years to reach Earth. If a spacecraft like the Voyager were en route to this star system, it would take about 40,000 years to get there. As of 2014, the Voyager had been flying through space for 35 years and has yet to cover even 0.05 percent of that distance.