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Astronomy Facts - A Closer Look

Monday, June 29th, 2009 Subscribe To Our Feed

There must be a lot of astronomy facts right? Realize that the universe contains one times 10 to the 22nd stars, that’s a one followed by a string of 22 zeros. Then consider that many of those stars have planets surrounding them. Then consider the moons that surround the planets, the asteroids, the nebula, the galaxies, and all the other stuff the universe contains. That’s a lot of data and facts and figures. This article, which presents astronomy facts, certainly won’t contain every astronomy fact. But these are interesting facts.

The data on the brightest star as seen from Earth are good astronomy facts. Let’s ignore the sun, it’s too close. The sun is so bright that it washes out all of the other stars in the daylight sky. Keep in mind that in the scale for the magnitudes given, lower numbers are brighter. The sun would be about -26.73, while the full moon is -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. When looking at these astronomy facts remember that brightest from Earth doesn’t mean largest or brightest. The Sun is not the largest or brightest star in the universe or even the galaxy, yet it appears so bright because it is so near compared to other stars.

#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. In Greek that means guardian of the bear. It’s 37 light-years distant from our home on Earth.

Canopus comes in at #2. Of these top five Canopus, a Greek name for the pilot of the vessel Argo made famous in the stories about Jason and the Argonauts, is the brightest. But it’s 313 light years from Earth so it’s just second on this list as seen from Earth. It has a -.62 magnitude as seen by humans on this planet.

#1 is reserved for serious, meaning scorching in the Greek language. Sirius is also known as the Dog Star because it’s the brightest star in the constellation of Big Dog. It’s only 9 light years from Earth. That’s second closest of these top five. But from Earth it has a magnitude of -1.44. That makes it easily the brightest star as seen in the night sky.

This information doesn’t even scratch the surface of astronomy facts. But it’s something to consider next time you look into the sky.

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