World's TOP 10

Watching various bright stars up ahead on the sky at night is the most profound and beautiful sight. Ever thought which one of those is the brightest of all, the one which you probably see every night? We have summed up the ten brightest stars, except the Sun, which is the Earth’s own star. The brightness of a star is calculated through its apparent visual magnitude, the lower the magnitude the brighter is the star. Lets have a look at the least and the highest magnitude holding stars, which means the Top ten brightest stars.

The tenth brightest star in the night sky is the Beta Centauri, whereas the traditional names given to the star are ‘Agena’ and ‘Hadar’. ‘Hadar’ is an Arabic word which means ‘Soil or Earth’ and ‘Agena’ is a latin word meaning ‘The knee’. The apparent visual magnitude of this star is approximately 0.61, which makes it the tenth brightest star in the sky at night. The star is located in the constellation Centaurus.

The bright star Achernar is located in the constellation Eridanus, the ninth star on our list has an apparent visual magnitude of 0.50. Achernar is known to be blue, bright and has a mass as seven times the mass of the sun itself. The star is 139 light years away.

Betelgeuse is the reddish star in the sky which is 640 light years away. At number eighth the star has an apparent magnitude of 0.42 but apart from that it can get brighter or lighter according to the future. It would be known as the second sun, classified as type 2 Supernova if it exploded due to its Red giant structure.

The star is not at a very long distance away, which is 11.4 light years from the earth. The seventh star Procyon is located in constellation to Canis Minor with the apparent visual magnitude of 0.34. The star is not bright because of its own distinctive feature but because it is quite close to the sun. The closest star to the Procyon is Luyten’s Star which is about 0.34 pc away from it.

The sixth brightest star on the list is the Rigel which has the apparent visual magnitude of 0.12. Despite of being at a large distance of 772.9 light years away from the earth, the Rigel star shines really bright. At the origin of the Orion collection, the star is seen as a triple star system back from the earth.

With the apparent visual magnitude of 0.03, Vega is the bright star which is at a distance of 25.3 light years from the earth. The fifth star on the list is in the area of Lyra. Along with Sirius and Arcturus the star Vega too is the gleaming star from the Sun’s closest area. After the Sun, Vega was the first ever star that was photographed and to get its spectrum recorded.

The apparent visual magnitude of the star Rigil Kentaurus is known to be -0.01. The fourth on the list stands in constellation of Centaurus and is 4.4 light years away from the earth, which not a very long distance. This star is also known to be as Alpha Centauri.

The third brightest star is the Arcturus, found in the constellation of Bootes. The apparent visual magnitude of the star is known to be -0.04. The Orange star is reported to have bushed its hydrogen and is fusing the oxygen and carbon to its core helium. The small star might lose its life due that. Apart from that it is 36.3 light years away from the earth.

The Second brightest star on the list is the brightest in the area of Southern Carina. Canopus has an apparent magnitude of -0.72 and is at a long distance from the earth, which is 312.7 light years. It is a super giant of Spectral type F, which is why it is given a ‘Yellow white’ colour although when someone sees the star with an uncovered eye it will appear as bright white colour. It was not famous enough in the previous years because it was not seen by the Romans and Greek, it was not until the Ancient Egyptians started recognizing it and also gave it an Arabic name which was ‘Suhayl’.

Twice as bright as the second brightest star, Sirius is the brightest star in the sky. It has an apparent visual magnitude of -1.46 which makes it the brightest star in the night sky. In the area of Canis Major Sirius is the brightest except the sun, moon and some planets. The star is 8.6 light years away from the earth. The star has some instinct luminosity and its nearness to the earth makes it brighter.