"We demonstrated this by imaging the Proxima Centauri and Wolf 359 fields from Earth and New Horizons"
Whoever wrote "The Best of Both Worlds" likely consulted a star atlas to see which stars are closest to Earth and said "Hmmm, Wolf 359 sounds pretty cool."
That, and it had to roll off the tongue easily (so not Lalande 21185) and not have too many prior associations, in the series or otherwise (so not Alpha Centauri or Sirius). I'm assuming they had at least SOME inkling that they were writing a battle that had the potential to be referred to many times after that. No, they didn't know that their next series would have a lead who lost his wife there, but they may have had in mind that they would want characters to be able to say something like "I was at Wolf 359" and have it only able to mean one thing.
NASA's New Horizons probe just woke up from hibernation 6 billion miles away beyond Pluto. What's it doing out there?
Christ, if we lived in a civilized society we wouldn't have to do shit like this: A Petition for Continued Funding of Measurements by NASA’s New Horizons Mission (James Green)
