There must be a lot of astronomy facts right? 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 article, which presents astronomy facts, certainly won’t contain every fact. But it will be a lot of fun.

The data on the brightest star as seen from Earth are good astronomy facts. That’s discounting the Sun which is about 250,000 times closer than the next nearest star. We get so much light from the sun that when it shines none of the other stars can be seen. For the purposes of this discussion, lower numbers for brightness mean a brighter star. The sun would be about -26.73, while the full moon is -12.6. And now to the top five.

#5 is the Arabic word for eagle or vulture, Vega. It’s about 25 light years away from the Earth, with a magnitude of .03. Just because a star looks brighter from Earth doesn’t mean it’s really brighter. 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 goes to Rigel Kentaurus, or 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. Arcturus is 37 light-years from 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 it’s 313 light years from Earth so it’s just second on this list as seen from Earth. From earth its magnitude is -.62.

#1 is Sirius, meaning scorching in Greek. Because it’s the brightest star in the constellation Canis Major, it’s also called the Dog Star.. 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.

There are many more astronomy facts out there. But it’s something to consider next time you look into the sky.