Proxima Centauri's Path Aligning with Distant Stars will Help Reveal Its Mass

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/proximae28099s-unprecedented-passage-when-stars-align/




The green line in the above picture traces out the path that Proxima Centauri will be taking across the expanse of the night sky. The curvature and wave-like motion of the path is due to the motion of Earth around the Sun in its orbit. Proxima Centauri in the near future will be tracing out this path across our sky and reveal secrets about its mass as astronomers analyze the interaction of the star's mass with light from much more distant stars. Through process of gravitational microlensing and analysis of the phenomena arising as the star passes in front of the others, the gravity from Proxima Centauri will bend the light and cause apparently brighter/dimmer spots and even a spread out circular pattern of these directly behind stars. This is said to be the first time we will be able to notice significant effects of this gravitational lensing outside of our own solar system.