Sirius, also known as the Dog Star or Sirius A, is the brightest star in Earth's night sky. The name means "glowing" in Greek — a fitting description, as only a few planets, the full moon and the International Space Station outshine this star.
Sirius is the brightest star in the night sky. UPDATE: This article was published in January 2022—if you're reading this in August/September 2022 then here's what you need to know about the very bright “star” in the east after dark.
The Sun is the brightest star as viewed from Earth, at −26.74 mag. The second brightest is Sirius at −1.46 mag.
Sirius, the brightest star in the entire night sky, is a magnitude minus 1.4. This means that at maximum brightness, Venus is a whopping 17 times brighter than Sirius. Observing with a telescope, we find Venus to be mostly dark, appearing as a crescent similar to the familiar phase of the moon.
Sirius A and B. The brightest star in the sky is Sirius, also known as the “Dog Star” or, more officially, Alpha Canis Majoris, for its position in the constellation Canis Major. Sirius is a binary star dominated by a luminous main sequence star, Sirius A, with an apparent magnitude of -1.46.
Brilliant Sirius as a southern Pole Star
There's not even a moderately bright star – like our North Star Polaris – to mark the south celestial pole, the point in the sky directly over the Earth's South Pole. The pole star – either north or south – is the point around which the entire sky turns.
Australia scores 12 out of 12 on the brightest star list, while the UK scores seven. Mighty Sirius, in first place, is visible for all of us. To see Canopus or the twin suns of Alpha Centauri you'll have to book a holiday.
Proxima Centauri is the closest star to the Sun, lying just over four light-years away. The newly discovered planet, named Proxima d, orbits Proxima Centauri at a distance of about four million kilometres, less than a tenth of Mercury's distance from the Sun.
Sirius A is the brightest star in Earth's night sky, due to its intrinsic brightness and its proximity to us. Sirius B, a white dwarf star, is smaller than Earth but it has a mass 98 percent that of our sun.
Uranus rise and set in Sydney
View after sunset.
Visible planets (evening)
Mars is high in the evening sky and is visible until a few hours before dawn. It's very red now and brighter than most stars. Mars reached opposition on December 8, 2022, when Earth flew between Mars and the sun.
The stars seem to twinkle in the night sky due to the effects of the Earth's atmosphere. When starlight enters the atmosphere, it is affected by winds in the atmosphere and areas with different temperatures and densities. This causes the light from the star to twinkle when seen from the ground.
Orion's Belt or the Belt of Orion, also known as the Three Kings or Three Sisters, is an asterism in the constellation Orion. It consists of the three bright stars Alnitak, Alnilam and Mintaka.
More specifically, it is the planet we call Venus. Other than the moon and sun, it is the brightest object up there; on a clear morning, it can even be seen during daylight. At this time of the year, it is known as the morning star.
All the stars we see in the night sky are in our own Milky Way Galaxy. Our galaxy is called the Milky Way because it appears as a milky band of light in the sky when you see it in a really dark area. It is very difficult to count the number of stars in the Milky Way from our position inside the galaxy.
Located just under 1,600 light-years away, the discovery suggests there might be a sizable population of dormant black holes in binary systems. The black hole Gaia BH1, seen in this artist's concept near its Sun-like companion star, is the closest black hole to Earth discovered so far.
The Hubble Deep Field, an extremely long exposure of a relatively empty part of the sky, provided evidence that there are about 125 billion (1.25×1011) galaxies in the observable universe.
Planetary scientists discovered a giant, still-forming exoplanet called AB Aurigae b. The over 30-year-old Hubble Space Telescope imaged the planet, which is developing in a still young and volatile disk of gas and dust, called a protoplanetary disk. The nascent solar system's star is just 2 million years old.
Bottom line: Sirius is the brightest star in the night sky as seen from Earth and is visible from both hemispheres.
The Milky Way galaxy sparkles brightly in all its celestial wonder when you're stargazing in the iconic Warrumbungle National Park, Australia's first Dark Sky Park near Coonabarabran. Here, the stars are your destination - the pristine night sky above the volcanic landscape is unimpeded by artificial light.
There are alternative ways to visualise Orion. From the Southern Hemisphere, Orion is oriented south-upward, and the belt and sword are sometimes called the saucepan or pot in Australia and New Zealand.
There is no "South Star". It's just a coincidence that there happens to be a bright star (Polaris) close to the Celestial North Pole. The Southern Hemisphere isn't so lucky. The only star that comes close is Sigma Octans, which is 1 degree away from the South Celestial Pole.
Sirius is known colloquially as the "Dog Star", reflecting its prominence in its constellation, Canis Major (the Greater Dog).