Stars are incredibly far away from Earth. The closest star to the Sun is Proxima Centauri, which is about 4.24 light-years away. One light-year is the distance light travels in one year, roughly 9.44 trillion kilometers (5.88 trillion miles). This means Proxima Centauri is around 40 trillion kilometers (25 trillion miles) away from us. The average distance between stars in our Milky Way galaxy is about 5 light-years, or approximately 29 trillion miles (47 trillion kilometers). Distances to stars are often measured using a method called parallax, which relies on Earth's orbit around the Sun to form a triangle and calculate the distance based on the observed shift in a star's position.