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.

(In reply to Correct me if I'm wrong by Brian Wainscott)

Brian, you wrote:
90 light years = 90 x 365.25 x 24 x 60 = 47336400 light seconds. This is 5917050 times the distance from the earth to the sun.

I think you missed a 60 in there (to represent 60 minutes/hour or 60 seconds/minute)... since you seem to be looking for light seconds. Either way, I suppose the result worked out :-)

--- SK

Posted by SilverKnight on 2003-09-18 15:19:04