✦ Stars
Astronomy Explorer — Planets, Stars & Live Space Data
🪐 The Solar System
Mercury
Venus
Earth
Mars
Jupiter
Saturn
Uranus
Neptune
⭐ Brightest Stars in the Night Sky
| # | Name | Constellation | Magnitude | Distance (ly) | Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sirius | Canis Major | −1.46 | 8.6 | A |
| 2 | Canopus | Carina | −0.74 | 313 | A |
| 3 | Rigil Kentaurus | Centaurus | −0.27 | 4.4 | G |
| 4 | Arcturus | Boötes | −0.05 | 37 | K |
| 5 | Vega | Lyra | +0.03 | 25 | A |
| 6 | Capella | Auriga | +0.08 | 43 | G |
| 7 | Rigel | Orion | +0.13 | 860 | B |
| 8 | Procyon | Canis Minor | +0.34 | 11.5 | A |
| 9 | Betelgeuse | Orion | +0.42 | 700 | M |
| 10 | Achernar | Eridanus | +0.46 | 139 | B |
| 11 | Hadar | Centaurus | +0.61 | 390 | B |
| 12 | Altair | Aquila | +0.76 | 17 | A |
| 13 | Aldebaran | Taurus | +0.87 | 65 | K |
| 14 | Antares | Scorpius | +1.06 | 550 | M |
| 15 | Spica | Virgo | +1.04 | 250 | B |
🌌 Cosmic Facts
The Sun contains 99.86% of all mass in the Solar System. Everything else — all planets, moons, asteroids — shares the remaining 0.14%.
A bolt of lightning is 5× hotter than the surface of the Sun (30,000K vs 5,778K). The Sun's core reaches 15 million°C.
The nearest black hole to Earth is Gaia BH1, just 1,560 light-years away in the constellation Ophiuchus, discovered in 2022.
The Milky Way is estimated to contain 100–400 billion stars and is about 105,700 light-years in diameter.
The observable universe is 93 billion light-years across and contains roughly 2 trillion galaxies — far more than previously thought.
The Moon is drifting away from Earth at 3.8 cm per year. When it formed, it was 14× closer and made Earth's day just 6 hours long.
Betelgeuse, the red supergiant in Orion, is expected to explode as a supernova within the next 100,000 years — bright enough to cast shadows at night.
There is a water cloud in space (APM 08279+5255) containing 140 trillion times Earth's ocean volume — the largest known water reservoir.
The ISS travels at 28,000 km/h, completing an orbit every ~92 minutes. Astronauts on board see 16 sunrises and sunsets every day.