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Many star names are, in origin, descriptive of the part in the constellation they are found in; thus Phecda, a corruption of Arabic فخذ الدب ( fakhdh ad-dubb, 'thigh of the bear'). Only a handful of the brightest stars have individual proper names not depending on their asterism; so Sirius ('the scorcher'), Antares ('rival of Ares ', i.e ...
Galaxy Constellation Origin of name Notes Andromeda Galaxy: Andromeda: Andromeda, which is shortened from "Andromeda Galaxy", gets its name from the area of the sky in which it appears, the constellation of Andromeda. Andromeda is the closest big galaxy to the Milky Way and is expected to collide with the Milky Way around 4.5 billion years from ...
Below are lists of the largest stars currently known, ordered by radius and separated into categories by galaxy. The unit of measurement used is the radius of the Sun (approximately 695,700 km; 432,300 mi). [1] The Sun, the orbit of Earth, Jupiter, and Neptune, compared to four stars.
In practice, names are only universally used for the very brightest stars ( Sirius, Arcturus, Vega, etc.) and for a small number of slightly less bright but "interesting" stars ( Algol, Polaris, Mira, etc.). For other naked eye stars, the Bayer or Flamsteed designation is often preferred. In addition to the traditional names, a small number of ...
Lists of galaxies. Look up galaxy in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. A galaxy is a system of stars, stellar remnants, interstellar gas, dust, dark matter, bound together by gravity. The word is derived from the Greek galaxias, literally 'milky', a reference to the Milky Way galaxy that contains the Solar System.
The following is a list of particularly notable actual or hypothetical stars that have their own articles in Wikipedia, but are not included in the lists above. BPM 37093 — a diamond star. Cygnus X-1 — X-ray source. EBLM J0555-57Ab — is one of the smallest stars ever discovered.
Astronomical naming conventions. In ancient times, only the Sun and Moon, a few stars, and the most easily visible planets had names. Over the last few hundred years, the number of identified astronomical objects has risen from hundreds to over a billion, and more are discovered every year. Astronomers need to be able to assign systematic ...
The Sun is the brightest star as viewed from Earth, at −26.78 mag. The second brightest is Sirius at −1.46 mag. For comparison, the brightest non-stellar objects in the Solar System have maximum brightnesses of: the Moon −12.7 mag [1] Venus −4.92 mag. Jupiter −2.94 mag. Mars −2.94 mag.