Question

What is the brightest star that we can see in the night sky?

Answer 1

Rigel

Explanation:

Rigel is one of the brightest stars in the night sky and the brightest in the constellation Orion.

It has an apparent magnitude of 0.12, where Betelgeuse (the second brightest star in Orion) is a bit dimmer (apparent magnitude 0.42).

Some interesting facts about Rigel:

1. Rigel is about 800 light years away
2. It is a star of class B (from bigger and brighter to smaller and dimmer the classification is O, B, A, F, G, K, M). Our Sun is a G-type star
3. It has a mass equal to 17 times the mass of our Sun
4. It has a radius equal to 70 times the radius of our Sun
5. It has already converted all the hydrogen it had into helium
6. Rigel is relatively young (only 10 million years old, our Sun is around 5 billion years old)
7. It will end its life probably by exploding as a supernova