The name of the stars in the night sky. What is the brightest star in the sky

Below is a list of the most powerful stars, the stars are arranged in order of increasing absolute magnitude (decreasing luminosity). Absolute magnitude is the apparent brightness of a star at a distance of 10 parsecs. Absolute ... ... Wikipedia

This is a list of the brightest stars in the constellation Canis Minor. The stars are sorted in order of decreasing apparent brightness. Name Symbol F HD HIP Right ascension Dec. abs. Distance (sv.g) Spectral type Add.sv Procyon α 10 61421 37279 ... ... Wikipedia

The ratio of the sizes of the planets of the solar system and some well-known stars, including VY Canis Major: Mercury< Марс < Венера < Земля; … Википедия

The style of this article is not encyclopedic or violates the norms of the Russian language. The article should be corrected according to the stylistic rules of Wikipedia ... Wikipedia

This is a list of the brightest stars in the constellation Cepheus. The stars are sorted in order of decreasing apparent brightness. Name Symbol F HD HIP Right ascension Dec. abs. Distance (st. g) Spectral type Additional information α Cep α 5 ... ... Wikipedia

This is a list of the brightest stars in the constellation Cancer. The stars are sorted in order of decreasing apparent brightness. Name Symbol F HD HIP Right ascension Dec. abs. Distance (sv.g) Spectral type Additional information β Cancer β 17 ... ... Wikipedia

This list lists all the stars of the constellation Auriga up to the apparent magnitude of +6.5m and other stars of particular interest, such as: variables, with planetary systems, supernovae, etc. Name B F HD HIP RA Dec ... ... Wikipedia

This list lists all the stars of the constellation Bootes up to the apparent magnitude of +6.5m and other stars of particular interest, such as: variables, with planetary systems, supernovae, etc. Name B F HD HIP ... Wikipedia

This is a list of the brightest stars in the constellation Vulpecula. The stars are sorted in order of decreasing apparent brightness. Name Symbol F HD HIP Right ascension Dec. abs. Distance (st. g) Spectral type Additional information α Vul α 6 ... ... Wikipedia

Books

• Just Kids, Patti Smith. "Just Kids" is a memoir by Patti Smith, an American singer and poet, one of the most extraordinary and charismatic figures of bohemian life in New York in the 1970s and a pioneer of the punk movement. In 2010 "Just...
• Structure and Randomness, Tao T. The author of this book is a Fields Prize winner and one of today's brightest young mathematicians. The genre of this book is unique. It is written on the basis of a network diary (blog) and consists of…

• Translation

Do you know all of them, as well as the reasons for their brightness?

I am hungry for new knowledge. The point is to learn every day, and become brighter and brighter. That is the essence of this world.
- Jay Z

But those of us who can't watch such a spectacle on a periodic basis are overlooking the fact that stars seen from urban areas with high light pollution look different than they do when viewed in dark conditions. Their color and relative brightness immediately separate them from their neighboring stars, and each of them has its own story.

Residents of the northern hemisphere can probably immediately recognize the Big Dipper or the letter W in Cassiopeia, while in the southern hemisphere the most famous constellation has to be the Southern Cross. But these stars are not among the ten brightest!

Milky Way near the Southern Cross

Each star has its own life cycle, to which it is tied from the moment of birth. In the formation of any star, the dominant element will be hydrogen - the most abundant element in the universe - and its fate is determined only by its mass. Stars with a mass of 8% of the mass of the sun can ignite a nuclear fusion reaction in the core, fusing helium from hydrogen, and their energy gradually moves from the inside out and pours out into the universe. Low-mass stars are red (due to low temperatures), dim, and burn their fuel slowly—the longest-lived stars are destined to burn for trillions of years.

But the more a star gains mass, the hotter its core, and the larger the region in which nuclear fusion takes place. By the time it reaches the solar mass, the star falls into class G, and its lifetime does not exceed ten billion years. Double the solar mass and you have an A star, bright blue, and less than two billion years old. And the most massive stars, classes O and B, live only a few million years, after which they run out of hydrogen fuel in the core. Not surprisingly, the most massive and hottest stars are also the brightest. A typical class A star can be 20 times brighter than the Sun, and the most massive - tens of thousands of times!

But no matter how a star begins life, the hydrogen fuel in its core ends.

And from that moment on, the star begins to burn heavier elements, expanding into a giant star, colder, but also brighter than the original one. The giant phase is shorter than the hydrogen burning phase, but its incredible brightness makes it visible from far greater distances than the original star was visible from.

Considering all this, let's move on to the ten brightest stars in our sky, in order of increasing brightness.

10. Achernar. A bright blue star, seven times the mass of the Sun and 3,000 times as bright. This is one of the fastest rotating stars known to us! It rotates so fast that its equatorial radius is 56% greater than the polar one, and the temperature at the pole - since it is much closer to the core - is 10,000 K more. But it is quite far from us, at 139 light years.

9. Betelgeuse. A red giant from the constellation of Orion, Betelgeuse was a bright and hot class O star until it ran out of hydrogen and switched to helium. Despite its low temperature of 3500 K, it is more than 100,000 times brighter than the Sun, which is why it is among the ten brightest, despite being 600 light years away. In the next million years, Betelgeuse will go supernova, and temporarily become the brightest star in the sky, possibly visible during the day.

8. Procyon. The star is very different from the ones we have considered. Procyon is a modest F-class star, only 40% larger than the Sun, and is on the verge of running out of hydrogen in its core - that is, it is a subgiant in the process of evolution. It is about 7 times brighter than the Sun, but is only 11.5 light-years away, so it can be brighter than almost all but seven of the stars in our sky.

7. Rigel. In Orion, Betelgeuse is not the brightest of the stars - this distinction is awarded to Rigel, a star even more distant from us. It's 860 light years away, and at just 12,000 degrees, Rigel isn't a main sequence star - it's a rare blue supergiant! It is 120,000 times brighter than the Sun, and shines so brightly not because of its distance from us, but because of its own brightness.

6. Chapel. This is a strange star, because, in fact, these are two red giants with a temperature comparable to the sun, but each of them is about 78 times brighter than the Sun. At 42 light-years away, it's the combination of its own brightness, its relatively small distance, and the fact that there are two of them that allows Capella to be on our list.

5. Vega. The brightest star from the Summer-Autumn Triangle, the home of aliens from the movie "Contact". Astronomers used it as a standard "zero magnitude" star. It is only 25 light-years away, belongs to the main sequence stars, and is one of the brightest class A stars known to us, as well as quite young, only 400-500 million years old. At the same time, it is 40 times brighter than the Sun, and the fifth brightest star in the sky. And of all the stars in the northern hemisphere, Vega is second only to one star...

4. Arcturus. The orange giant, on the evolutionary scale, is somewhere between Procyon and Capella. This is the brightest star in the northern hemisphere, and it is easy to find it by the "handle" of the Big Dipper bucket. It is 170 times brighter than the Sun, and following the evolutionary path, it can become even brighter! It is only 37 light-years away, and only three stars are brighter than it, all located in the southern hemisphere.

3. Alpha Centauri. This is a triple system in which the main member is very similar to the Sun, and itself is dimmer than any of the ten stars. But the Alpha Centauri system consists of the stars closest to us, so its location affects its apparent brightness - after all, it is only 4.4 light-years away. Not at all like #2 on the list.

2. Canopus. A white supergiant, Canopus is 15,000 times brighter than the Sun and is the second brightest star in the night sky despite being 310 light-years away. It is ten times more massive than the Sun and 71 times larger - it is not surprising that it shines so brightly, but it could not reach the first place. The brightest star in the sky is...

1 Sirius. It is twice as bright as Canopus and northern hemisphere observers can often see it rising behind the constellation Orion in winter. It often twinkles because its bright light can penetrate the lower atmosphere better than the light of other stars. It is only 8.6 light-years away, but it is a Class A star, twice as massive and 25 times as luminous as the Sun.

It may surprise you that the first on the list are not the brightest or closest stars, but rather combinations of enough brightness and close enough distance to shine the brightest. Stars twice as far away are four times less bright, so Sirius shines brighter than Canopus, which shines brighter than Alpha Centauri, and so on. Interestingly, class M dwarf stars, to which three out of every four stars in the universe belong, are not on this list at all.

What can be learned from this lesson: sometimes the things that seem most prominent and most obvious to us turn out to be the most unusual. Common things can be much more difficult to find, but this means that we should improve our methods of observation!

The constellation Orion is one of the most beautiful in the night sky. It is familiar to many from childhood: it is difficult to ignore it, since the most noticeable stars and celestial objects in the constellation Orion are visible from Earth with the naked eye. These include luminaries that surpass the Sun in a number of parameters, and the beautiful Great Nebula M42. Two bright stars in the constellation Orion, Rigel and Betelgeuse, are very easy to find in the sky. They facilitate the detection of the remaining elements of the constellation.

Description

Orion is an ancient mythical character, a skilled hunter, companion and lover of Artemis. Legends and myths about the constellation Orion say that it appeared in the sky at the behest of an inconsolable goddess who killed a hunter as a result of the cunning of her jealous brother Apollo. Artemis swore to remember her lover forever and placed him in heaven.

In the arrangement of elements it is very easy to guess the silhouette of a hunter. He stood in the sky with a raised club, a sword at his belt and a shield in his hand. Constellation details are known asterisms. The sheaf forms a characteristic figure. It is formed by three well-marked stars located on one straight line. A little lower is the asterism Sword of Orion, which includes two stars and between them a blurry spot of the M42 nebula. The belt with the southeast end of the line points to Sirius, and the northwest end to Aldebaran.

Each bright star in the constellation Orion is impressive. The constellations surrounding it lose in beauty precisely because of the absence of such a large number of elements that are impressive in their luminosity.

palm

Against the backdrop of all this splendor, a pair of giants stands out. The historical name of the two brightest stars in the constellation Orion is Rigel and Betelgeuse. Their scientific designation is Beta and Alpha Orionis, respectively. Both giants, as already mentioned, are perfectly visible from Earth. It can be said that they compete for the title of the first star in this celestial drawing. Betelgeuse is designated as Alpha, but Rigel is somewhat brighter.

The name of two bright stars in the constellation Orion is of Arabic origin. Rigel in translation means “leg”, and Betelgeuse means “armpit”. The names of the stars, therefore, give an approximate understanding of where the luminaries are located. Alpha Orion is located on the hunter's right armpit, and Beta is on his leg.

red supergiant

Betelgeuse in many ways can be considered the most significant luminary in Orion. This is a red supergiant, belonging to semi-regular variable stars: its brightness varies from 0.2 to 1.2 magnitudes. At the same time, the lower limit of luminosity exceeds the level of this parameter in the Sun by eighty thousand times. The distance separating the star and the Earth is estimated at an average of 570 light years (the exact value of the parameter is unknown).

The scale of Betelgeuse can be understood by comparing them with the size of the orbits of the planets of the solar system. The minimum size of a star, if placed in the place of our sun, would cover all the space up to the orbit of Mars. The maximum would correspond to the orbit of Jupiter. The mass of Betelgeuse is 13-17 times greater than the sun.

Study problems

Alpha Orion is 300 million times larger than the Sun. It is difficult to measure its exact diameter, since its brightness slowly decreases with distance from the center of the star. It is generally accepted that if the distance to Betelgeuse is taken as 650 light years, then its diameter varies from 500 to 800 of the corresponding parameters of our star.

Betelgeuse is the first luminary after the Sun for which a disk image could be obtained using a space telescope. The image captured the ultraviolet atmosphere of a star with a bright spot in the center. Its dimensions exceed several tens of times the earth's diameter. The temperature of this area is much higher than on the rest of the surface of the cosmic body. The origin of the stain is still unknown. It is assumed that it is the result of a new physical phenomenon affecting the star's atmosphere.

leg of orion

Rigel is the brightest star in the constellation Orion. The constellations Hare and Eridanus, adjacent to the celestial image of the mythical hunter, are often identified in the sky by their proximity to Rigel. Beta Orionis, due to its brightness, serves as a guide for observers.

Rigel is a white-blue supergiant with a visual - 0.12. The distance to the star from the Sun is approximately 860. The radius of Beta Orion is inferior to that of Betelgeuse. At the same time, the luminosity of Rigel is 130 thousand times greater than that of our star. In this parameter, he is ahead of Alpha Orion.

Like Betelgeuse, Rigel is a variable star. It is characterized by an irregular cycle of change in its value from 0.3 to 0.03 with a period of approximately 24 days. Rigel is traditionally considered a triple. Sometimes he is credited with possessing a fourth component. However, indisputable evidence of its existence has not yet been obtained.

Neighbor

Associated with Beta Orionis is the Witch's Head Nebula. In its shape, it really is very similar to the head of a witch in a pointed hat. This is a reflection nebula, glowing due to the proximity to Rigel. In the pictures, the Witch's Head has a bluish tint, since particles of cosmic dust in the composition of the nebula better reflect blue light, and Rigel itself emits mainly in the blue part of the spectrum.

Evolution

Two bright stars in the constellation Orion will not always be so. The internal processes of both will sooner or later lead to fuel burnout and, possibly, an explosion - impressive dimensions do not contribute to long-term existence. However, they are definitely enough for our age. Betelgeuse is predicted to shine for at least another two thousand years. Then it collapses and explodes. At the same time, its brightness will become comparable to the light of half or even the full moon. According to another scenario, Betelgeuse will “quietly” turn into a white dwarf. In any case, at the end of the process for an earthly observer, the shoulder of Orion will go out.

Rigel is also destined to shine in the sky for a short time with an explosion of enormous power. According to assumptions, his fury will be comparable to a quarter of the moon.

Other luminaries

The two bright stars in the constellation Orion are not the only prominent objects in this celestial pattern. The hunter's belt consists of three luminaries clearly visible from the Earth. These are Mintaka (Delta Orion), Alnitak (Zeta) and Alnilam (Epsilon). On the left shoulder of the hunter is Bellatrix (Gamma Orionis), the third brightest point in the constellation. Its luminosity exceeds the solar 4 thousand times. Among the stars available for observation with the naked eye, Bellatrix stands out for its significant surface heating. Its temperature is estimated at 21,500º K.

Nebulae and black holes

Two more bright stars in the constellation Orion are located just below the Belt and belong to the Sword of the Hunter. This is Theta and Iota of Orion. Between them, a third object is noticeable, which, unknowingly, can also be attributed to the number of stars. However, this is the Great Nebula of Orion, which appears to be a small, blurry spot from Earth. New stars are constantly being born here. Here, presumably, is located the largest mass exceeding the Sun by 100 times.

No less than M42, the Torch and Horsehead Nebulae, also located in the constellation Orion, are also famous. The first one really looks like flames rising above the fire, for which it got its name. The Horsehead Nebula also lives up to its name in shape. The silhouette of a horse is clearly visible in the pictures. It looks like she's about to jump on. refers to reflection nebulae: by itself, it does not emit light. The nebula IC 434, which serves as a background, provides an opportunity to admire it. It highlights the dark neighbor.

The constellation Orion is often visible in numerous telescope images. Interesting objects: stars, nebulae, clouds of gas and cosmic dust - amaze with their beauty in photographs. However, the silhouette of a hunter seems no less impressive from the Earth. Such an abundance of bright and accessible objects for observation with the naked eye is not typical, perhaps, for any other celestial images.

Those who want to see all the beauty that the mythical hunter hides can use the numerous astronomy resources that allow you to study, among other things, the constellation Orion: Astrogalaxy, Google Sky, Google Earth service.

People have always admired the starry sky. Even in the Stone Age, living in caves and dressed in skins, at night they raised their heads to the sky and admired the glowing lights.


Today the stars still attract our eyes. We know well that the brightest of them is the Sun. But what are the others called? What are the brightest stars besides the Sun?

1 Sirius

Sirius is the brightest star in the night sky. It is not much higher (only 22 times), but due to its proximity to the Earth, it is more noticeable than others. The star can be seen from almost any corner of the globe, except for the northern regions.

In 1862, astronomers discovered that Sirius had a companion star. Both of them revolve around a single center of mass, but only one of them is visible from the Earth - Sirius A. According to scientists, the star is gradually approaching the Sun. Its speed is 7.6 km / s, so over time it will become even brighter.

2. Canopus

Canopus is in the constellation Carina and is the second brightest after Sirius. It belongs to the supergiants, exceeding the Sun in radius by 65 times.

Among all the stars located at a distance of 700 light years from Earth, Canopus has the highest luminosity, but due to its remoteness, it does not shine as brightly as Sirius. Once, before the invention of the compass, sailors used it as a guiding star.

3. Toliman

Toliman is another name for Alpha Centauri. In fact, it is a binary system with stars A and B, but these stars are so close to each other that they cannot be distinguished with the naked eye. The third brightest in the sky is one of them - Alpha Centauri A.

In the same system there is another star - Proxima Centauri, but usually it is considered separately, and in terms of brightness it is not even included in the 25 stars with the highest luminosity.

4. Arcturus

Arcturus belongs to the orange giants and shines brighter than other stars included with it. In different regions of the Earth, it can be seen at different times of the year, but in Russia it is always visible.

According to the observations of astronomers, Arcturus is a variable star, that is, changing its brightness. Every 8 days, its brightness varies by 0.04 magnitude, which is explained by the pulsation of the surface.

5. Vega

The fifth brightest star is included in the constellation Lyra and is the most studied after the Sun. Vega is located at a small distance from the solar system (only 25 light years) and is visible from anywhere on the planet, with the exception of Antarctica and the northern regions of North America.

Around Vega is a disk of gas and dust, which, under the influence of its energy, emits infrared rays.

6. Chapel

From an astronomical point of view, the star is interesting for its binary system. Capella is two giant stars, 100 million kilometers apart. One of them called Chapel Aa is old and gradually begins to fade.


The second one, Capella Ab, still shines quite brightly, but, according to scientists, the processes of helium synthesis have already ended in it. Sooner or later, the shells of both stars will expand and touch each other.

7. Rigel

The luminosity of Rigel is 130 thousand times greater than the Sun. This is one of the most powerful stars in the Milky Way, but due to its remoteness from the solar system (773 light years), it is only seventh in brightness.

Like Arcturus, Rigel is considered a variable star and changes its brightness at intervals of 22 to 25 days.

8. Procyon

Procyon's distance from Earth is only 11.4 light years. Its system includes two stars - Procyon A (bright) and Procyon B (dim). The first is a yellow subgiant and shines about 7.5 times brighter than the Sun. Due to its age, over time it will begin to expand and will shine much better.

It is believed that sooner or later it will increase to 150 times its current size, and then take on an orange or red color.

9. Achernar

In the list of the 10 brightest stars in the sky, Achernar takes only ninth place, but at the same time she is the hottest and bluest. The star is located in the constellation Eridani and shines 3000 times brighter than the Sun.

An interesting feature of Achernar is a very fast rotation around its axis, as a result of which it has an elongated shape.

10. Betelgeuse

Betelgeuse's maximum luminosity is 105,000 times that of the Sun, but it's about 640 light-years away from the solar system, so it's not as bright as the previous nine stars.


Due to the fact that the brightness of Betelgeuse gradually decreases from the center to the surface, scientists still cannot calculate its diameter.

Not only astronomers and romantics like to look at the sky. We all from time to time raise our eyes to the stars and admire their eternal beauty. That is why each of us is at least sometimes interested in which star in the sky is the brightest.

For the first time, the Greek scientist Hipparchus asked this question, and he proposed his classification 22 centuries ago! He divided the stars into six groups, where the stars of the first magnitude are the brightest of those that he could observe, and the sixth - barely visible to the naked eye.

Is it worth saying that we are talking about relative brightness, and not about the real ability to glow? Indeed, in addition to the amount of light produced, the brightness of a star observed from Earth is affected by the distance from this star to the place of observation. It seems to us that the brightest star in the sky is the Sun, because it is closest to us. In fact, it is not at all bright and quite a small star.

Approximately the same system for distinguishing stars by brightness is now used, only improved. Vega was taken as the reference point, and the brightness of the remaining stars is measured from its indicator. The brightest stars have a negative exponent.

So, we will consider exactly those stars that are recognized as the brightest according to the improved Hipparchus scale

10 Betelgeuse (α Orion)

The red giant, whose mass is 17 times more solar, closes the top 10 brightest night stars.

This is one of the most mysterious stars in the Universe, because it is able to change its size, and its density remains unchanged. The color and brightness of the giant is different at different points.

Scientists expect Betelgeuse to explode in the future, but given that the star is at a great distance from the Earth (according to some scientists - 500, according to others - 640 light years), this should not affect us. However, for several months the star can be seen in the sky even during the day.

9 Achernar (α Eridani)

A favorite of science fiction writers, a blue star with a mass 8 times greater than that of the Sun looks very impressive and unusual. The star Achernar is flattened so that it resembles a rugby ball or a delicious “torpedo” melon, and the reason for this is a fantastic rotation speed of more than 300 km per second, approaching the so-called lift-off speed, at which centrifugal force becomes identical to gravity.

Interested in

Around Achernar, you can observe a luminous shell of the substance of a star - this is plasma and hot gas, and the orbit of Alpha Eridani is also very unusual. By the way, Achernar is a double star.

This star can only be observed in the Southern Hemisphere.

8 Procyon (α Minor Dog)

One of the two “dog stars” is similar to Sirius both in that it is the brightest star in the constellation Canis Minor (and Sirius is the brightest star in Canis Major) and in that it is also a double.

Procyon A is a pale yellow star about the size of the Sun. It is gradually expanding, and in 10 million years it will become an orange or red giant. According to scientists, the process is already underway, as indicated by the unprecedented brightness of the star - it is more than 7 times brighter than the sun, although it is similar in size and spectrum.

Procyon B, its companion, a dim white dwarf, is about the same distance from Procyon A as Uranus is from the Sun.

And here there were some mysteries. Ten years ago, a long study of the star was undertaken with the help of an orbiting telescope. Astronomers were eager to get confirmation of their hypotheses. However, the hypotheses were not confirmed, and now scientists are trying to explain what is happening on Procyon in some other way.

Continuing the "dog" theme - the name of the star means "before the dog"; this means that Procyon appears in the sky before Sirius.

7 Rigel (β Orion)

In seventh place in terms of relative (observed by us) brightness is one of the most powerful stars in the Universe with an absolute value of -7, that is, the brightest of the more or less nearby stars.

It is located at a distance of 870 light years, so less bright, but closer stars seem brighter to us. Meanwhile, Rigel is 130 thousand times brighter than the Sun and 74 times larger in diameter!

The temperature on Rigel is so great that if something were to be at the same distance from it as the Earth is relative to the Sun, this object would immediately turn into a stellar wind!

Rigel has two satellite stars, almost invisible in the brightest glow of the blue-white supergiant.

6 Chapel (α Charioteer)

Capella is the third brightest star in the Northern Hemisphere. Of the stars of the first magnitude (the famous Pole Star has only the second magnitude), the Capella is located closest to the North Pole.

This is also a double star, and the fainter of the pair is already turning red, and the brighter one is still white, although the hydrogen in its body, obviously, has already passed into helium, but has not yet ignited.

The name of the star means goat, because the Greeks identified it with the goat Amalthea, who nursed Zeus.

5 Vega (α Lyra)

The brightest of the Sun's neighbors can be observed throughout the entire Northern Hemisphere and almost the entire Southern Hemisphere, except for Antarctica.

Vega is beloved by astronomers for being the second most studied star after the Sun. Although there is still a lot of mystery in this "most studied" star. What to do, the stars are in no hurry to reveal their secrets to us!

Vega's rotation rate is very high (it rotates 137 times faster than the Sun, almost as fast as Achernar), so the temperature of the star (and hence its color) differs at the equator and at the poles. Now we see Vega from the pole, so it seems to us a pale blue.

Vega is surrounded by a large cloud of dust, the origin of which is controversial among scientists. The question of whether Vega has a planetary system is also debatable.

4 The brightest star in the Northern Hemisphere is Arcturus (α Bootes)

In fourth place is the brightest star in the Northern Hemisphere - Arcturus, which in Russia can be observed anywhere throughout the year. However, it is also visible in the Southern Hemisphere.

Arcturus is many times brighter than the Sun: if we take into account only the range perceived by the human eye, then more than a hundred times, but if we take the intensity of the glow as a whole, then 180 times! It is an orange giant with an atypical spectrum. Someday our Sun will reach the same stage where Arcturus is now.

According to one version, Arcturus and its neighboring stars (the so-called Arcturus Stream) were once captured by the Milky Way. That is, all these stars are of extragalactic origin.

3 Toliman (α Centauri)

This is a double, more precisely, even a triple star, but we see two of them as one, and the third, dimmer, which is called Proxima, as if separately. However, in fact, all these stars are not very bright, but are not far from us.

Since Toliman is somewhat similar to the Sun, astronomers have long and persistently searched for a planet near it, similar to the Earth and located at a distance that makes life possible on it. In addition, this system, as already mentioned, is relatively close, so the first interstellar flight will probably be there.

Therefore, the love of science fiction writers for Alpha Centauri is understandable. Stanislav Lem (the creator of the famous "Solaris"), Asimov, Heinlein devoted pages of their books to this system; in the Alpha Centauri system, the action of the sensational film "Avatar" also takes place.

2 Canopus (α Carina) - the brightest star in the Southern Hemisphere

In terms of absolute luminosity, Canopus is much brighter than Sirius, which, in turn, is much closer to Earth, so objectively it is the brightest night star, but from a distance (it is at a distance of 310 light years), it seems to us dimmer than Sirius.

Canopus is a yellowish supergiant whose mass is 9 times the mass of the Sun, and it glows 14 thousand times stronger!

Unfortunately, this star cannot be seen in Russia: it is not visible north of Athens.

But in the Southern Hemisphere, Canopus was used to determine their location in navigation. In the same capacity, Alpha Carina is used by our astronauts.

1 The brightest star in our starry sky is Sirius (α Canis Major)

The famous “dog star” (it’s not for nothing that J. Rowling named her hero, who turned into a dog), the appearance of which in the sky meant the beginning of the holidays for ancient scholars (this word means “dog days”) - one of the closest to the solar system and therefore, it is perfectly visible from almost anywhere on the Earth, except for the Far North.

It is now believed that Sirius is a double star. Sirius A is twice the size of the Sun, and Sirius B is smaller. Although millions of years ago, apparently, it was the other way around.

Many peoples have left various legends associated with this star. The Egyptians considered Sirius the star of Isis, the Greeks - the dog of Orion taken to heaven, the Romans called him Vacation ("little dog"), in ancient Russian this star was called Psitsa.

The ancients described Sirius as a red star, while we observe a bluish glow. Scientists can only explain this by assuming that all ancient descriptions were compiled by people who saw Sirius low above the horizon, when its color was distorted by water vapor.

Be that as it may, now Sirius is the brightest star in our sky, which can be seen with the naked eye even during the day!