How distant is the closest star?
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beside our Sun. Proxima Centauri is 4.2 light years away
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The Andromeda Galaxy.  Distance 2.5 - 2.9 million lightyears away
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The nearest black hole known to us is near a visible star called V 4641, in the constellation Sagittarius just 1,600 light years away in the direction of the galactic center.  It is about 3 to 10 solar masses and is classified as a microquasar.
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An international team of astronomers from France, Italy, the UK and Australia has found a previously unknown galaxy colliding with our own Milky Way. This newly-discovered galaxy takes the record for the nearest galaxy to the centre of the Milky Way. Called the Canis Major dwarf galaxy after the constellation in which it lies, it is about 25000 light years away from thesolar system and 42000 light years from the centre of the Milky Way. This i closer than the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy, discovered in 1994, which is also colliding with the Milky Way. The discovery shows that the Milky Way is building up its own disk by absorbing small satellite galaxies. The research is to be published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society within the next few weeks.\n\nThe discovery of the Canis Major dwarf was made possible by a recent survey of the sky in infrared light (the Two-Micron All Sky Survey or "2MASS"), which has allowed astronomers to look beyond the clouds of dust in the disk of the Milky Way. Until now, the dwarf galaxy lay undetected behind the dense disk. "It's like putting on infrared night-vision goggles," says team-member Dr Rodrigo Ibata of Strasbourg Observatory. "We are now able to study a part of the Milky Way that has been previously out of sight".\n\nThe new dwarf galaxy was detected by its M-giant stars =AD cool, red stars that shine especially brightly in infrared light. "We have used these rare M-giant stars as beacons to trace out the shape and location of the new galaxy because its numerous other stars are too faint for us to see," explains Nicolas Martin, also of Strasbourg Observatory. "They are particularly useful stars as we can measure their distances, and so map out the three-dimensional structure of distant regions of the Milky Way disk." In this way, the astronomers found the main dismembered corpse of the dwarf galaxy in Canis Major and long trails of stars leading back to it. It seems that streams of stars pulled out of the cannibalised Canis Major galaxy not only contribute to the outer reaches of the Milky Way's disk, but may also pass close to the Sun.\n\nAstronomers currently believe that large galaxies like the Milky Way grew to their present majestic proportions by consuming their smaller galactic neighbours. They have found that cannibalised galaxies add stars to the vast haloes around large galaxies. However, until now, they did not appreciate that even the disks of galaxies can grow in this fashion. Computer simulations show that the Milky Way has been taking stars from the Canis Major dwarf and adding them to its own disk - and will continue to do so.\n\n"On galactic scales, the Canis Major dwarf galaxy is a lightweight of about only one billion Suns," said Dr. Michele Bellazzini of Bologna Observatory. "This small galaxy is unlikely to hold together much longer. It is being pushed and pulled by the colossal gravity of our Milky Way, which has been progressively stealing its stars and pulling it apart." Some remnants of the Canis Major dwarf form a ring around the disk of the Milky Way.\n\n"The Canis Major dwarf galaxy may have added up to 1% more mass to our Galaxy," said Dr Geraint Lewis of the University of Sydney. "This is also an important discovery because it highlights that the Milky Way is not in its middle age - it is still forming." "Past interactions of the sort we are seeing here could be responsible for some of the exquisite detail we see today in the structure of the Galaxy," says Dr Michael Irwin of the University of Cambridge.
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Here is a comprehensive list of the 26 nearest stars compiled from the Dept. of Astronomy, University of Wisconsin at Madison...\n\nThe answer to your question then is:\n\nProxima Centauri - 4.2 light years from the Sun
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Yes. Using the parallax method to measure the distance to stars is only useful to about 100 pc. To measure greater distances spectroscopic techniques are used.
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You don't really need the Star's speed, only it's spectral class. The spectral classes are O, B, A, F, G, K and M, with O being the brightest and M the dimmest. If you know how bright the star is intrinsically from it's spectral class, then you can calculate how far away it is from it's apparent brightness in the sky. But this method if fraught with difficulties. Red giants and white dwarfs are off the main sequence of stars. That means that a red star may be much brighter that it's spectral type would indicate and a white dwarf is much dimmer than it's spectral class would indicate. Also, there may be interstellar dust and gas between you and the star that makes it look dimmer that it would through clear space. But if you are careful, all these factors can be taken into account and you can get an approximate distance.\n\nFor the distance to a remote galaxy that is too far away for individual stars to be seen, the red shift of the overall glow of the galaxy can be measured and used to determine the galaxies radial velocity, or the speed at which it is moving away from you. Multiplying that by the Hubble constant gives you an approximate distance.\n\nIf you want a really accurate distance to a star, the only sure way is by measuring it's parallax. But this can only be done for comparatively nearby stars. The Hipparcos satellite measured thousands of stellar parallaxes to a precision not obtainable from the ground, and the catalog is freely available online.
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First find the Big Dipper constellation (Ursa Major) Find the two stars farthest from the dipper handle. Draw an imaginary line from the bottom star through the top star and extend the line outward. The first bright star your imaginary line comes near is the North Star---that's north.\n\nThe website shown has a diagram of the above.
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Their distance from the Sun
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Alpha Centauri is the closest star system beyond our own solar system  4.39 light years away.  It is composed of 3 small stars: two of which, A. Centauri A, and A. Centauri B are similar to Earth.   Proxima Centauri, a red dwarf star in that system is the closest @ ~ 4.26 light years.\n\nThere are (probably) no planets in that system.  It is highly unlikely that there is any intelligent life close to Earth (ie < 100 light years) but no one really knows.  Some say there is no intelligent life on Earth.
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the nearest star is the sun having nine planets in orbit.the sun is 93,027,003 miles away from earth.if you dont beleive me,go ask you teacher or someone.
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Pluto is the farthest planet from the sun. Its average distance from the sun is 3,670,050,000 miles (5,906,380,000 kilometers).
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It is approximately 2.2 million light years away.  A light year is 5,865,696,000,000 miles (9,460,800,000,000 kilometers), so multiply this by 2.2 million and you have the distance in miles/kilometers.
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Jupiter is way too close to be using light years.\n\nOne "Astronomical Unit" is the earth-sun distance and is approximately eight light minutes. Jupiter orbits at about five A.U. from the sun.  So even when Earth and Jupiter are at their most distant I would still expect that distance to be less than one light hour.
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"A light year is the distance light travels in one year: about 9.461 × 10^15 metres or about 5.879 × 10^12 miles."\n\nFor some context, it is 4.22 light years to Proxima Centauri, the nearest star outside the solar system.
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Proxima Centuri. About 4.2 light years away. Check the foll link for more info\n\nst
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Andromeda is just 2.5 million light years away.\nOur sun is only halfway through it's 4.6 BILLION year life.\nSolar systems closer to the Shapley Center of our Milky Way galaxy are younger.