Astronomy Facts

How many astronomy facts can you think of? Realize that the universe contains one times 10 to the 22nd stars, that's a one followed by a string of 22 zeros. Now realize that many of those stars are surrounded by plants. Then consider all the moons that orbit the planets, the comets and asteroids, the galaxies these stars form, the nebulae and black holes and everything else out there. It's a lot to consider. Not every piece of information can be presented here. Walked is here, however, is interesting.

How about the brightest stars as seen from Earth? Those are good astronomy facts. That's discounting the Sun which is about 250,000 times closer than the next nearest star. It's so bright as seen from Earth that it washes out all the other stars in the sky during a phenomenon called “daylight.” Keep in mind that in the scale for the magnitudes given, lower numbers are brighter. The son is approximately 26.73, with the full moon weighing in at -12.6. With that in mind, here are the top 5.

#5 is Vega, which means eagle or vulture in Arabic. It's about 25 light years away from the Earth, with a magnitude of .03. Just because a star looks brighter from Earth doesn't mean it's really brighter. The sun is only a moderately bright star, but because of its proximity to the Earth it appears to be so bright.

#4 is Rigel Kentaurus, that's Arabic for foot of the centaur. It's about four light years from Earth with a magnitude of -.01.

At #3, remember this is set in stone as one of the many astronomy facts we have, is Arcturus. The name means guardian of the bear in Greek. This star is 37 light years from us.

Canopus sits at number two. In reality it's the brightest of all of these top five stars. However, it's 313 light-years away from Earth, so it looks second brightest as seen from this planet. -.62 is its magnitude is seen from the planet Earth.

#1 is the Greek word for scorching, Sirius. Sirius is also known as the Dog Star because it's the brightest star in the constellation of Big Dog. Only 9 light-years separate Sirius and the earth, that's the second nearest in this top five list. At -1.44 magnitude it's the brightest star we can see from Earth.

There are many more astronomy facts out there. Think about magnitudes, however, next time you look up at the stars.