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It means "apparent" - visible to the naked eye. It is the magnitude of an object as viewed from Earth.

The Sun has an apparent magnitude of -26.73 because it is very close to us. However, Sirius, which is actually more luminous, has an apparent magnitude of -1.46 because it is further away from Earth.

For this reason we also use absolute magnitude, which is the luminosity of an object at the same distance.

Using absolute scales. The Sun has a value of 4.85 and Sirius has a value of 1.42.

(NB: The lower the value, the more luminous an object is)

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15y ago

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