• Question: How bright are stars?

    Asked by nazia1999 to Adam, Catherine, Karen, Leila, Nazim on 16 Mar 2012.
    • Photo: Adam Stevens

      Adam Stevens answered on 16 Mar 2012:

      It varies. Some are very dim, some very bright. If they explode they’re pretty much the brightest thing these is!

    • Photo: Karen Masters

      Karen Masters answered on 16 Mar 2012:

      That depends on how massive they are and what stage in their life.

      Massive stars are brighter, and stars also get brighter when they start dying and expand dramatically.

    • Photo: Leila Battison

      Leila Battison answered on 17 Mar 2012:

      Really bright! That’s why you can’t stare at the sun without going blind! The brightnesss of a star depends on its ‘luminosity’ – it’s real brightness, and how close you are – the closer you are, the brighter it is!

    • Photo: Nazim Bharmal

      Nazim Bharmal answered on 19 Mar 2012:

      Stars are brighter and dimmer for lots of reasons but the most important is how far away they are. As a comparison, the brightest star in the sky apart from the sun is Sirius. The sun is a much, much smaller star
      but because it is so close, it is 10 billion times brighter. If we replaced the sun with Sirius, then during the day, it would be almost 20 times brighter.

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