Is the sun the brighest star?

Answer 1

The north star which is Polaris isn't the brightest star, it is the 45th brightest star in the night time sky standing between Castor A (α Gem) the 44th brightest star and Mirzam ( β CMa ) the 46th brightest star

Answer 2

No. Sirius appears to be the brightest star in the nighttime sky and R136a1 is the actual brightest star (absolute magnitude).

The North Star (Polaris) does not appear to move in the sky as the Earth turns. If you take a camera at night , point it north and keep the shutter open all night, the stars expose circular rings around Polaris. Actually Polaris was closest to being on the Continuation of the Earth's axis of rotation in 2007, the axis points to different places as time goes on (think of a spinning top, it wobbles and its axis of spin moves in a circular or elliptic path- same with the Earth) it tales about 22000 years for the axis to complete on such rotation and in about 13000 years the axis will point to Vega (or nearly so).

Old cultures have named different stars names equivalent to the "north star" as different stars have been in the direction of the axis of rotation. There are at least 3 stars that the Chinese have named thus.

Answer 3

The North Star, or Polaris, is not the brightest star in the night sky - that distinction goes to Sirius. Polaris is about the 50th brightest, and by some accounts, is growing in brightness. (The brightest star in the sky is of course our Sun).

The reason that Sirius (and the Sun) are so bright is not that they're actually that bright, they're just really close (by astronomy standards). Sirius has an "absolute magnitude" (a measure of brightness that doesn't depend on distance) of 1.42, which is pretty bright (it's about 25 times more luminous than the Sun, which has an absolute magnitude of 4.83 ... higher is dimmer, and it's not a linear scale), but not even close to the brightest star in absolute terms. The second brightest star (other than the Sun) is Canopus, which has an absolute magnitude of -5.53 (around 15,000 times more luminous than the Sun)... but it's a lot further away: around 310 light-years, compared to Sirius 8.3 light-years or the Sun's 100 light-seconds. Apparent brightness falls as the square of the distance, so if Canopus were at the same distance as Sirius, it would be comparable to Venus at its brightest, far outstripping Sirius.

The only reason I can think of that so many people think that the North Star is the brightest star is the lyrics from a song from the late 70s, in which the phrases "Northern Star" and "brightest light that shines" were in close juxtaposition. When you actually look at the lyrics, it seems more like he's saying that his girlfriend is (metaphorically) the "brightest light", and comparing her constancy to that of the North Star, but if you're not listening closely it would be easy to think "North Star = brightest, got it."

Polaris has an absolute magnitude of -3.6 (around 2500 times more luminous than the Sun) ... which is why it's still a notable star despite being a bit further away than Canopus. However, its lower intrinsic brightness and greater distance means that while it stands out in the patch of sky it's in, it doesn't really compare to Canopus in apparent magnitude, and Sirius (which is astronomically speaking just next door) beats them both.

Answer 4

the sun is not really the brightest star although it is brighter than some. stars that are bigger are also brighter. the sun seems like the brightest star because it is the closest to us

Answer 5

it is one of the brightest stars in the night sky