Sirius, a white-blue main-sequence star in Canis Major’s constellation, is the brightest star in the night sky. Due to its brightness, Sirius has been known to humans since ancient times. This article presents an engaging collection of facts about this legendary star.
- Sirius is one of the stars closest to the Sun. It is located at a distance of 8.6 light-years from the Sun. Sirius’s mass is twice the Sun’s, and its radius is 1.7 times larger.
- Its name, Sirius, comes from the Greek word “Σείριος,” meaning “bright,” and it’s not surprising — its luminosity is 25 times greater than that of the Sun.
- Despite being the brightest star in the night sky, Sirius is not the brightest celestial object at night, excluding the Moon. Four planets in our solar system — Jupiter, Venus, Mars, and Mercury — outshine Sirius in brightness. However, Mercury surpasses Sirius in brightness only when it is at its greatest elongation from the Sun.
- Sirius is a very young star, estimated to be around 200–300 million years old — a mere infancy in astronomical terms. For comparison, the age of the Sun is approximately 4.6 billion years.
- Sirius is a binary system consisting of two stars: Sirius A and Sirius B. However, we can only observe Sirius A with the…
