To count the stars in the universe we need a one followed by 22 zeros. Now realize that many of those stars are surrounded by planets. Then consider the moons that surround the planets, the asteroids, the nebula, the galaxies, and all the other stuff the universe contains.

The brightest stars as seen from Earth is the Sun about 250,000 times closer than the next star.The sun is so bright that it washes out all of the other stars in the daylight sky. In a brightness scale we’ll use, lower numbers are brighter. In the scale we’ll use the sun is 26.73, and the moon is -12.6. The top five lists of the brightest stars are:

#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. Our sun, for example, appears brighter than any other star, even though it’s not one of the brightest in the universe. That’s because it’s so close.

#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, is Arcturus. In Greek that means guardian of the bear. Arcturus is 37 light-years from Earth.

#2 is Canopus. In reality it’s the brightest of all of these top five stars. But it’s 313 light years from Earth so it’s just second on this list as seen from Earth. -.62 is its magnitude is seen from the planet Earth.

#1 is Sirius, meaning scorching in Greek. 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. It’s appears to be the brightest star in the sky, with a magnitude of -1.44.

Author: Shabnam Sultan
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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