Handy Astronomical Facts

Useful for outreach volunteers or anyone teaching astronomy. Designed with the NYC public in mind, in terms of analogies and units. Please add as many things as you like.

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Distance

There are six trillion miles in a light year.

If the Earth's orbit around the Sun were shrunk down to the size of a quarter, a light year would extend about 10 short city blocks. In other words, a light year in this scale is 0.5 miles. Now you can make comparisons between the distances to the bright stars in our sky:

star		dist. (lyr)
Altair		17
Deneb		1400
Vega		25
Pollux		34
Castor		50
Capella		42
Aldebaran		65
Betelgeuse		600
Rigel		800
Sirius		9
Arcturus		37
Mizar		78
Polaris		430