Astronomy Facts
How many astronomy facts are there for all the objects and phenomenon in the entire universe? Consider that there are somewhere around 1 x 10 ^22 stars in the universe, that's a one followed by 22 zeros. Then consider that many of those stars have planets surrounding them. 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. The number of facts and amount of data is staggering. This article, which presents astronomy facts, certainly won't contain every astronomy fact. But these are interesting facts.
Let's take a look at this subset of astronomy facts – the brightest stars as seen from Earth. 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 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. The name means guardian of the bear in Greek. This star is 37 light years from us.
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 Sirius, meaning scorching in Greek. It's also called the Dog Star because it's the brightest star in the constellations Canis Major (the 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.