Seneca also said that if there was only one place left on Earth from which to see the stars, all people would strive to this place. Even with a minimum of imagination, you can compose figures and whole plots on a wide variety of topics from twinkling stars. Perfection in this skill was achieved by astrologers, who connected the stars not only to each other, but also saw the connection of the stars with earthly events.
Even without having an artistic taste and not succumbing to charlatan theories, it is difficult not to succumb to the charm of the starry sky. After all, these tiny lights can actually be giant objects or consist of two or three stars. Some of the visible stars may no longer exist - after all, we see the light emitted by some stars thousands of years ago. And, of course, each of us, raising our head to the sky, at least once, but thought: what if some of these stars have creatures similar to us?
1. During the day, stars are not visible from the surface of the Earth, not because the Sun is shining - in space, against the background of an absolutely black sky, stars are perfectly visible even near the Sun. The sun-lit atmosphere interferes with seeing the stars from the Earth.
2. The stories that during the day the stars can be seen from a sufficiently deep well or from the base of a high chimney are idle speculations. Both from the well and in the pipe, only a brightly lit area of the sky is visible. The only tube through which you can see the stars during the day is a telescope. In addition to the Sun and the Moon, during the day in the sky you can see Venus (and then you need to know exactly where to look), Jupiter (information about observations is very contradictory) and Sirius (very high in the mountains).
3. The twinkling of the stars is also a consequence of the atmosphere, which is never, even in the most windless weather, static. In space, stars shine with a monotonous light.
4. The scale of cosmic distances can be expressed in numbers, but it is very difficult to visualize them. The minimum unit of distance that scientists use, the so-called. an astronomical unit (about 150 million km), respecting the scale, can be represented as follows. In one corner of the front line of the tennis court, you need to put a ball (it will play the role of the Sun), and in the other - a ball with a diameter of 1 mm (this will be the Earth). The second tennis ball, depicting Proxima Centauri, the closest star to us, will need to be placed about 250,000 km from the court.
5. The three brightest stars on Earth can only be seen in the southern hemisphere. The brightest star in our hemisphere, Arcturus, takes only fourth place. But in the top ten, the stars are located more evenly: five are in the northern hemisphere, five in the southern.
6. About half of the stars observed by astronomers are binary stars. They are often portrayed and presented as two closely spaced stars, but this is an oversimplified approach. The components of a binary star can be very far apart. The main condition is rotation around a common center of mass.
7. The classic phrase that the big is seen at a distance is not applicable to the starry sky: the largest stars known to modern astronomy, UY Shield, can only be seen through a telescope. If you put this star in the place of the Sun, it would occupy the entire center of the solar system up to the orbit of Saturn.
8. The heaviest and also the brightest of the studied stars is R136a1. It also cannot be seen with the naked eye, although it can be seen near the equator through a small telescope. This star is located in the Large Magellanic Cloud. R136a1 is 315 times heavier than the Sun. And its luminosity exceeds the solar one by 8,700,000 times. During the observation period, Polyarnaya became significantly (according to some sources, 2.5 times) brighter.
9. In 2009, using the Hubble Telescope, an international team of astronomers discovered an object in the Beetle Nebula with temperatures exceeding 200,000 degrees. The star itself, located in the center of the nebula, could not be seen. It is believed that this is the core of an exploded star, which retained its original temperature, and the Beetle Nebula itself is its scattering outer shells.
10. The temperature of the coldest star is 2,700 degrees. This star is a white dwarf. She enters the system with another star, which is hotter and brighter than her partner. The temperature of the coldest star is calculated “at the tip of a feather” - scientists have not yet managed to see the star or get an image of it. The system is known to be located 900 light years from Earth in the constellation Aquarius.
Constellation aquarius
11. The North Star is not at all the brightest. According to this indicator, it is included only in the fifth dozen visible stars. Her fame is due only to the fact that she practically does not change her position in the sky. The North Star is 46 times larger than the Sun and 2,500 times brighter than our star.
12. In the descriptions of the starry sky, either huge numbers are used, or it is generally said about the infinity of the number of stars in the sky. If from a scientific point of view, this approach does not raise questions, then in everyday life everything is different. The maximum number of stars that a person with normal vision can see does not exceed 3,000. And this is in ideal conditions - in complete darkness and clear sky. In settlements, especially large ones, it is unlikely that one and a half thousand stars can be counted.
13. The metallicity of stars is not at all the content of metals in them. This content of substances in them is heavier than helium. The Sun has a metallicity of 1.3%, and a star called Algeniba is 34%. The more metallic the star, the closer it is to the end of its life.
14. All the stars that we see in the sky belong to three Galaxies: our Milky Way and the Triangulum and Andromeda galaxies. And this applies not only to the stars visible to the naked eye. It was only through the Hubble telescope that it was possible to see the stars located in other galaxies.
15. Do not mix galaxies and constellations. Constellation is a purely visual concept. The stars that we attribute to the same constellation can be located millions of light-years from each other. Galaxies are similar to archipelagos - the stars in them are located relatively close to each other.
16. Stars are very diverse, but differ very little in chemical composition. They are mainly composed of hydrogen (about 3/4) and helium (about 1/4). With age, the helium in the composition of the star becomes more, hydrogen - less. All other elements usually account for less than 1% of the star's mass.
17. The adage about a hunter who wants to know where a pheasant is sitting, invented to memorize the sequence of colors in the spectrum, can be applied to the temperature of the stars. Red stars are coldest, blue ones are hottest.
18. Despite the fact that the first maps of the starry sky with constellations were still in the II millennium BC. e., clear boundaries of the constellation acquired only in 1935 after a discussion that lasted a decade and a half. There are 88 constellations in total.
19. With good accuracy it can be argued that the more “utilitarian” the name of the constellation, the later it is described. The ancients called the constellations by the names of gods or goddesses, or gave poetic names to star systems. Modern names are simpler: the stars over Antarctica, for example, were easily combined into Clock, Compass, Compass, etc.
20. Stars are a popular part of state flags. Most often they are present on flags as decoration, but sometimes they also have an astronomical background. The flags of Australia and New Zealand feature the Southern Cross constellation - the brightest in the Southern Hemisphere. Moreover, the New Zealand Southern Cross consists of 4 stars, and the Australian - of 5. The five-star Southern Cross is part of the flag of Papua New Guinea. The Brazilians went much further - their flag depicts a patch of starry sky over the city of Rio de Janeiro as of 9 hours 22 minutes 43 seconds on November 15, 1889 - the moment when the country's independence was proclaimed.
