Some Facts on Astronomy
How much is there to be known or learned about all the objects and phenomenon in the entire universe? Remember that there are about 1 x 10 ^22 stars in the universe, that’s 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars; then that many of those stars have planets spinning around them. Then think about all the moons that orbit those planets and the comets and asteroids, the galaxies these stars form, the nebulae and black holes and everything else that’s out there. The amount of information and data is really quite staggering. This article certainly won’t contain every fact about astronomy. But they are very interesting facts nevertheless.
We will start by taking a look at a small section of astronomy: “the brightest stars seen from the Earth”. That is excepting the Sun which is roughly 250,000 times nearer than the next nearest star. In fact, it is so bright that when the sky is viewed from the Earth, it blinds out all the other stars in the sky during a phenomenon called daytime.
So, while reading this list, please bear in mind that according to the scale we are using, lower numbers are brighter: the Sun would be roughly -26.73, whereas the full moon is about -12.6; keeping that in mind, here are the top 5:
#5 is Vega, which is in Lyra, and which means ‘falling eagle’ in Arabic. It’s about 25 light years away from the Earth, with a magnitude of 0.04.
When you are thinking about these astronomical facts, please bear in mind that the ‘brightest from the 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 seems so bright to us because it is near compared to the other stars.
#4 is Rigel – a very bright, bluish-white supergiant star in the constellation Orion. It is a binary star, with an average apparent magnitude of 0.12. It’s scientific name is Beta Orionis. Rigel is Arabic for ‘foot’. It’s about four light years from Earth.
#3 is Arcturus. The translates as ‘guardian of the bear’ from the Greek. This star is about 37 light years away from us. It is situated in the constellation of Bootes, close to The Great Bear. It has a magnitude of 0.00
#2 Canopus. Of the top five, Canopus, the Greek name for the pilot of the ship Argo in the stories about Jason and the Argonauts, is the brightest, but because it is 313 light years from Earth, it’s only second on this list of the five brightest stars seen from Earth. It has a magnitude of -.62.
#1 is Sirius, which translate from the Greek as ‘scorching’. It’s also sometimes called the ‘Dog Star’ because it is the brightest star in the constellation of Canis Major, which means ‘The Big Dog’ in Latin. It is situated only 9 light years from Earth, which makes it easily the second closest of these top five. It has a magnitude of -1.44, which makes it very easily the brightest star that can be observed in the night sky.
This information doesn’t even scratch the surface on the subject of astronomy facts but it’s something to consider next time you look into the night sky.
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