Colorful stars. What is the brightest star in the sky? The brightest star in the modern universe

The starry sky has always attracted people. Even being at a low stage of development, dressing in animal skins and using stone tools, a person already raised his head and examined the mysterious points that shimmered mysteriously in the depths of the vast sky.

The stars have become one of the foundations of human mythology. According to ancient people, it was there that the gods lived. The stars have always been something sacred for a person, unattainable for an ordinary mortal. One of the most ancient sciences of mankind was astrology, which studied the influence of heavenly bodies on human life.

Today, the stars remain the focus of our attention, but it is true that astronomers study them more, and science fiction writers invent stories about the time when a person will be able to reach the stars. An ordinary person often raises his head to admire the beautiful stars in the night sky, just like his distant ancestors did millions of years ago. We have compiled a list for you that includes the brightest stars in the sky.

In tenth place on our list is Betelgeuse, astronomers call it α Orionis. This star is a great mystery to astronomers: they are still arguing about its origin and cannot understand its periodic variability.

This star belongs to the class of red giants and its size is 500-800 times the size of our Sun. If we were to move it into our system, then its boundaries would extend to the orbit of Jupiter. Over the past 15 years, the size of this star has decreased by 15%. Scientists still do not understand the reason for this phenomenon.

Betelgeuse is located at a distance of 570 light-years from the Sun, so a trip to it will definitely not take place in the near future.

The first star in this constellation, it ranks ninth on our list. the brightest stars in the night sky. Achernar is located at the very end of the constellation Eridani. This star is classified as a class of blue stars, it is eight times heavier than our Sun and exceeds it in brightness by a thousand times.

Achernar is 144 light-years away from our solar system, and travel to it in the near future also looks unlikely. Another interesting feature of this star is that it rotates around its axis with great speed.

This star is the eighth by its brightness in our firmament. The name of this star is translated from Greek as "before the dog." Procyon enters the winter triangle, along with the stars Sirius and Betelgeuse.

This star is a binary star. In the sky, we can see the larger star of the pair, the second star is a small white dwarf.

There is a legend associated with this star. The constellation Canis Minor symbolizes the dog of the first winemaker, Ikaria, who was killed by treacherous shepherds, having drunk him with his own wine beforehand. The faithful dog found the owner's grave.

This star is seventh brightest in our sky. The main reason for the rather low place in our ranking is the very large distance between the Earth and this star. If Rigel were a little closer (at the distance of Sirius, for example), then in its brightness it would surpass many other luminaries.

Rigel belongs to the class of blue-white supergiants. The size of this star is impressive: it is 74 times larger than our Sun. In fact, Rigel is not one star, but three: in addition to the giant, this stellar company includes two more small stars.

Rigel is located at a distance of 870 light years from the Sun, which is a lot.

Translated from Arabic, the name of this star means "leg". People have known this star for a very long time, it was included in the mythology of many peoples, starting with the ancient Egyptians. They considered Rigel to be the incarnation of Osiris, one of the most powerful gods in their pantheon.

One of the most beautiful stars in our sky. This is a double star, which in ancient times was an independent constellation and symbolized a goat with kids. Capella is a double star that consists of two yellow giants that revolve around a common center. Each of these stars is 2.5 times heavier than our Sun and they are located at a distance of 42 light years from our planetary system. These stars are much brighter than our sun.

An ancient Greek legend is associated with the Chapel, according to which Zeus was fed by the goat Amalthea. One day, Zeus carelessly broke off one of the animal's horns, and so a cornucopia appeared in the world.

One of the brightest and most beautiful stars in our sky. It is located at a distance of 25 light years from our Sun (which is a fairly small distance). Vega belongs to the constellation Lyra, the size of this star is almost three times the size of our Sun.

This star rotates around its axis at breakneck speed.

Vega can be called one of the most studied stars. It is located at a short distance and is very convenient for research.

Many myths of different peoples of our planet are associated with this star. In our latitudes, Vega is one of the brightest stars in the sky and second only to Sirius and Arcturus.

One of the brightest and most beautiful stars in the sky which can be observed anywhere in the world. The reasons for this brightness is the large size of the star and the small distance from it to our planet.

Arcturus belongs to the class of red giants and has a huge size. The distance from our solar system to this star is "only" 36.7 light years. It is more than 25 times larger than our star. At the same time, the brightness of Arcturus is 110 times higher than the Sun.

This star owes its name to the constellation Ursa Major. Translated from Greek, its name means "guardian of the bear." Arcturus is very easy in the starry sky, you just need to draw an imaginary arc through the handle of the Big Dipper bucket.

In second place on our list is a triple star, which belongs to the constellation Centaurus. This star system consists of three stars: two of them are close in size to our Sun and the third star, which is a red dwarf called Proxima Centauri.

Astronomers call the double star that we can see with the naked eye Toliban. These stars are very close to our planetary system, and therefore seem very bright to us. In fact, their brightness and size are quite modest. The distance from the Sun to these stars is only 4.36 light years. By astronomical standards, it's almost there. Proxima Centauri was discovered only in 1915, it behaves rather strangely, its brightness changes periodically.

This is the second brightest star in our sky. But, unfortunately, we will not be able to see it, because Canopus is visible only in the southern hemisphere of our planet. In the northern part, it is visible only in tropical latitudes.

This is the brightest star in the southern hemisphere, in addition, it performs the same role in navigation as the North Star in the northern hemisphere.

Canopus is a huge star, which is eight times larger than our luminary. This star belongs to the class of supergiants, and it is in second place in terms of brightness only because the distance to it is very large. The distance from the Sun to Canopus is about 319 light years. Canopus is the brightest star within a radius of 700 light years.

There is no consensus on the origin of the name of the star. Most likely, it got its name in honor of the helmsman who was on the ship of Menelaus (this is a character in the Greek epic about the Trojan War).

The brightest star in our sky, which belongs to the constellation Canis Major. This star can be called the most important for earthlings, of course, after our Sun. Since ancient times, people have been very reverent and respectful of this luminary. There are numerous myths and legends about him. The ancient Egyptians placed their gods on Sirius. This star can be observed from anywhere on the earth's surface.

The ancient Sumerians watched Sirius and believed that it was on it that the gods who created life on our planet are located. The Egyptians watched this star very carefully, it was associated with their religious cults of Osiris and Isis. In addition, according to Sirius, they determined the time of the Nile flood, which was important for agriculture.

If we talk about Sirius from the point of view of astronomy, then it should be noted that this is a double star, which consists of a star of spectral class A1 and a white dwarf (Sirius B). You cannot see the second star with the naked eye. Both stars revolve around a single center with a period of 50 years. Sirius A is about twice the size of our Sun.

Sirius is 8.6 light years away from us.

The ancient Greeks believed that Sirius was the dog of the star hunter Orion, who pursued his prey. There is an African Dogon tribe that worships Sirius. But that's not surprising. Africans, who did not know writing, had information about the existence of Sirius B, which was discovered only in the middle of the 19th century with the help of fairly advanced telescopes. The Dogon calendar is based on the periods of rotation of Sirius B around Sirius A. And it is compiled quite accurately. How a primitive African tribe got all this information is a mystery.

To accurately answer this question, you need to know that the Sun belongs to the stars and it is without any doubt the brightest star visible from our Earth.

And then after the daylight comes Sirius, the planet of the dead, which is alpha in the constellation Canis Major. Sirius is the brightest and most mysterious star in the night sky. In ancient Egypt, Sirius was called Sothis.

You can easily see Sirius in the picture.

The answer to this question will be the name of the star SIRIUS. It is this star that is considered the brightest in the sky. E is visible from both hemispheres of the earth. Except for the extreme northern regions. In ancient times, people considered this star to be holy and worshiped it. SIRIUS.

Sirius - the brightest star in the night sky as seen from Earth (both in the northern and southern hemispheres). Sirius is a star of the first magnitude in constellation Canis Major. It is best observed in the night sky in the northern hemisphere in winter. In autumn, it appears in the sky in the morning, in spring - only in the evening, then it hides behind the horizon, and in the summer in the northern hemisphere you will not take it away. At this time, it is admired in the southern hemisphere.

The apparent magnitude of Sirius is -1.46. The distance to it is 8.6 light years, which is relatively close for cosmic parameters. That's why the star is so bright!

Of course, the brightest star in the sky is our beloved Sun. Of the stars visible from the northern hemisphere, the brightest is Sirius - the main star of the constellation Canis Major. Behind it are two bright stars: Arcturus - the alpha of the constellation Bootes and Vega - the main star of the constellation Lyra. The stars Capella, Rigel and Procyon are also very bright and beautiful, especially Rigel from the constellation Orion immediately catches the eye with its blueness.

The stars have always attracted the attention of people, who, as a result, began to give these heavenly bodies, as well as the constellations, names. One of the brightest stars in the northern hemisphere of the night sky, and which, according to scientists at least 230 million years old, is Sirius.

The brightest star we can see in the night sky is Sirius. This star is in the constellation Canis Major.

In addition, Sirius is one of the closest stars to Earth.

According to various estimates, the age of Sirius is from two hundred to three hundred million years.

In the northern hemisphere, or not, I can’t say, but In 2004, astronomers discovered the largest and brightest star at the other end of the Galaxy. This star, which is 45,000 light-years away, is 150 times as massive and 200 times as large as our Sun in diameter. In terms of brightness, it exceeds our luminary by 40 million times. This blue giant is estimated to be very young, less than two million years old. Despite the huge brightness of the star, it is almost invisible from the earth: 90 percent of the light is absorbed by clouds of cosmic dust and a large distance, so that the apparent brightness corresponds to the 8th magnitude. Before the discovery of this luminary, called LBV 1806-20, it was believed that there could be no stars more than 120 times the mass of the Sun.

If you answer the question what is the brightest star in the sky , then I will answer Sirius. What is in the northern, what is in the southern hemisphere.

But if you answer even more specifically which star brightest in the northern hemisphere , then I will answer Arcturus. But this star will already be inferior in brightness to the same Sirius.

Arcturus is in the constellation Bootes. It is not difficult to find it in the sky - we visually make an arc through the three stars of the handle at the Big Dipper bucket.



The brightest star in the night sky is Sirius. This is due to the relative proximity to the solar system, only 8.6 light years. This star can be observed from almost anywhere on our planet. In ancient times, Sirius was also called the Dog Star. Sirius is the sixth brightest object in the earth's sky. Only the Sun, the Moon are brighter than it, and during the period of best visibility, the planets Venus, Mars and Jupiter are also brighter. The approximate age of Sirius is about 230 million years.

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 a Betelgeuse explosion 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, 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 such 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 was not for nothing that J. Rowling called her hero who turned into a dog like that), 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 old 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 on 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!

Astronomy

• 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

When you imagine the night sky, you most likely think of thousands of stars twinkling on a black blanket of night, something that can only truly be seen far from cities and other sources of light pollution.

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!

Many in November are asking the question: what is the bright star seen in the east in the morning? She really very bright: other stars pale in comparison. It is still easily distinguishable even when here, in the southeast, the dawn is already in full swing, washing away other stars from the sky. And then, almost until sunrise, this star remains completely alone.

I want to congratulate you - you are observing the planet Venus, The brightest luminary in our sky after the Sun and the Moon!

Venus is only visible in the morning or evening sky- you will never see her late at night in the south. Her time is the pre-dawn or twilight evening hours, when she literally reigns in the sky.

Check yourself if you are really observing Venus.

• • November and December 2018 Venus is visible in the morning in the east rising 4 hours before sunrise. Two hours it is visible in the dark sky, and another hour - against the background of the dawn.
  • The color of Venus is white, may be slightly yellowish near the horizon.
  • Venus doesn't flicker that is, it does not blink, does not tremble, but shines powerfully, evenly and calmly.
  • Venus is so bright that it no longer looks like a star, but like a searchlight of an airplane flying towards. It has long been noticed that the bright white light of the planet is capable of cast clear shadows on the snow; the easiest way to check this is outside the city on a moonless night, where the light of Venus is not interfered with by lanterns. By the way, according to Russian astronomers, about 30% of reports of UFOs in our country fall on the ascending or setting Venus.

Venus is still bright and visible against the background of the dawn, although the stars are almost invisible at this time. Pattern: stellarium

In November 2018 - slightly to the right of the planet. Please note: Spica is one of the twenty brightest stars in the entire sky, but next to Venus it simply fades! Another bright star, Arcturus, is above and to the left of Spica. Arcturus has a characteristic reddish color. So, Venus is much brighter and Arcturus, and even more so Spica!

Watch these luminaries for a few minutes and compare their appearance with Venus. Notice how much more bright stars twinkle than Venus. Spica can even shimmer in different colors! Try also to remember the brightness of Venus in comparison with the brightest stars - and you will never confuse it with anything else.

Few things can match the beauty of Venus in the sky! The planet looks especially beautiful against the backdrop of a rising dawn. Beautiful celestial pictures are obtained when the crescent moon is next to Venus. The next such meeting will take place on the morning of December 3 and 4, 2018. Do not miss!

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