A solar system with a star like your own sun and a planet like Jupiter has been discovered 90 light years from us. If the star is just as bright as our sun, how does it compare in brightness to the other stars in our night sky?
Background information:
Light from the sun takes 8 minutes to reach the earth. The magnitude system for stars and other astronomical objects in our sky is designed so that a difference of 5 magnitudes represents a factor of 100 in brightness, with the larger numbered magnitudes being the dimmest. The dimmest stars seen with the unaided eye in a dark sky are about magnitude 6; the brightest stars (other than the sun) about 0. The planet Venus at times is magnitude -4, the full moon -14 and the sun -27.
Charlie, I kinda wish you asked a more objective (clear?) question. Only because it seems that you asked this only to get some discussion on the subject.
So, given that I think you are looking for some basic facts/discussion:
The apparent brightness of an object would be directly related to the intrinsic luminosity of an object and inversely related to the square of the distance between the object and the observer.
F = L / (4ð x d²)
Where:
F is the apparent brightness
L is the intrinsic Luminosity, and
d is the distance between the object and the observer
If we say that there are 90 years * 365.25 days/year * 24 hours/day * 60 minute/hour, then we see that the star in question is ~47.3 million light-minutes away from us.
This is ~5.917 million times further from us than the sun is....
Therefore, it would by ~(5.917 million)² times dimmer than our sun (from our perspective).
I hope that addresses your question.
--- SK
Edited on September 18, 2003, 3:15 pm
solution?!?
