Fascinating Astronomy Data That You May Not Know.|Astronomy Facts - What Do You Recognize About Astr

How many astronomy facts are there for all the objects and phenomenon in the entire universe? 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 plants. 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. That's a lot of data and facts and figures. Not every piece of information can be presented here. Walked is here, however, is interesting.

How about the brightest stars as seen from Earth? Those are good astronomy facts. 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. In the scale we'll use the sun is 26.73, and the moon is -12.6. With that in mind, here are the top 5.

#5 is Vega, which means eagle or vulture in Arabic. This star has a magnitude of .03, and is 25 light-years from Earth. When looking at these astronomy facts remember that brightest from Earth doesn't mean largest or brightest. 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 the Arabic foot of the centaur, Rigel Kentaurus. It's about four light years from Earth with a magnitude of -.01.

At #3, by the known astronomy facts is Arcturus. That's the Greek word for Guardian on 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. However, it's 313 light-years away from Earth, so it looks second brightest as seen from this planet. It has a -.62 magnitude as seen by humans on this planet.

#1 is reserved for serious, meaning scorching in the Greek language. It's also called the Dog Star because it's the brightest star in the constellation 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.

Astronomy facts go way beyond this. But it's something to consider next time you look into the sky.



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