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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 ...
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.
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.
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 ...
Additionally, astronomers have found 6 white dwarfs (stars that have exhausted all fusible hydrogen), 21 brown dwarfs, as well as 1 sub-brown dwarf, WISE 0855−0714 (possibly a rogue planet ). The closest system is Alpha Centauri, with Proxima Centauri as the closest star in that system, at 4.2465 light-years from Earth.
All stars but one can be associated with an IAU (International Astronomical Union) constellation. IAU constellations are areas of the sky. Although there are only 88 IAU constellations, the sky is actually divided into 89 irregularly shaped boxes as the constellation Serpens is split into two separate sections, Serpens Caput (the snake's head) to the west and Serpens Cauda (the snake's tail ...
In astronomy, star names, in contrast to star designations, are proper names of stars that have emerged from usage in pre-modern astronomical traditions. Lists of these names appear in the following articles: List of Arabic star names. List of Chinese star names. List of proper names of stars: traditional proper names in modern usage around ...
The first list shows a few of the known stars with an estimated luminosity of 1 million L ☉ or greater, including the stars in open cluster, OB association and H II region. The majority of stars thought to be more than 1 million L ☉ are shown, but the list is incomplete. The second list gives some notable stars for the purpose of comparison.