Astronomy Facts For Beginners
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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. Think about this, there are planets orbiting many of those stars. 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. Not every piece of information can be presented here. But it will be a lot of fun.
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. In a the brightness scale we’ll use, 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 goes to Vega, Arabic for vulture. This star has a magnitude of .03, and is 25 light-years from Earth. Just because a star looks brighter from Earth doesn’t mean it’s really brighter. The sun is only a moderately bright star, but because of its proximity to the Earth it appears to be so bright.
#4 is the Arabic foot of the centaur, Rigel Kentaurus. 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. 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 because of its distance, 313 light-years from Earth, it only appears to be second brightest. It has a -.62 magnitude as seen by humans on this planet.
#1 is reserved for serious, meaning scorching in the Greek language. Because it’s the brightest star in the constellation Canis Major, it’s also called the Dog Star.. 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.
Astronomy facts go way beyond this. Think about magnitudes, however, next time you look up at the stars.
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