How many astronomy facts can you think of?

Consider that there are somewhere around 1 x 10 ^22 stars in the universe, that's a one followed by 22 zeros. Now realize that many of those stars are surrounded by plants. Now think about all the moons that orbit the planets, and the comets, and the asteroids, and everything else in the universe. The number of facts and amount of data is staggering. This short discussion won't cover everything. 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.” In a the brightness scale we'll use, lower numbers are brighter. The son is approximately 26.73, with the full moon weighing in at -12.6. And now to the top five.

#5 is the Arabic word for eagle or vulture, Vega. This star has a magnitude of .03, and is 25 light-years from Earth. Overall, for this discussion of astronomy facts, the truly brightest star may not appear to be so from her. The sun is only a moderately bright star, but because of its proximity to the Earth it appears to be so bright.

#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, 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. 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. However, it's 313 light-years away from Earth, so it looks second brightest as seen from this planet. -.62 is its magnitude is seen from the planet Earth.

#1 is the Greek word for scorching, Sirius. Sirius is also known as the Dog Star because it's the brightest star in the constellation of Big Dog. Only 9 light-years separate Sirius and the earth, that's the second nearest in this top five list. 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 consider it next time you see the stars in the night sky.