Describing the Stars Genesis 1:16 – On the fourth day of creation “God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night; He made the stars also.” – Astronomers say there are about 200 billion billion stars in our universe!

Measurements of the Stars! The only star close enough to us to use miles is our star. As you have learned it is 93,000,000 miles away. It takes light 8 minutes to reach us from the sun.

Star Brightness The magnitude of a star is a measure of its brightness. Hipparchus was the first one to establish a system to assign magnitude. He divided the stars into six levels of brightness.

Apparent Birghtness of Stars

Measurements of the Stars! The next closest star is Proxima centauri. It is 25,000,000,000,000 (25 Trillion!) miles away! The distance around our galaxy is 590,000,000,000,000,000 (590 quadrillion) miles!

Measurements of the Stars! So, scientists use the LIGHT YEAR to measure distances in space. A light year is the distance light travels in one year. Proxima Centuari is 4.3 light years away. The distance across the Milky Way is 100,000 light years!

Measurements of the Stars! Astronomers first used a method called Parallax to measure distances.

Measurements of the Stars! Some astronomers would use Parsec. A Parsec is based upon parallax. One parsec is equal to 3.26 light years.

Star Color and Size