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.

Let’s take a look at a small subset of astronomy: “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 that when the sky is viewed from the Earth, it washes out all the other stars in the sky during a phenomenon called daylight.

So, keep in mind while reading this list that according to the scale used, lower numbers are brighter. The Sun would be about -26.73, whereas the full moon is -12.6; bearing that in mind, here are the top 5:

#5 is Vega, which means “falling eagle” in Arabic is in Lyra. It’s roughly 25 light years away and has a magnitude of 0.04.

When considering these astronomical facts, please 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 Rigel Centaurus – 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 Centaurus’ is Arabic for ‘the foot of the centaur’. It’s about four light years from Earth.

#3 is Arcturus. The name is Latin/Greek and means ‘guardian of the bear’. This star is roughly 37 light years away. It is in the constellation of Bootes, behind The Great Bear. It has a magnitude of 0.00

#2 Canopus. Of these top five, Canopus, the 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 magnitude of -.62 as seen from this planet.

#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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