Wednesday 15 August 2007

Birthday Stars

The stars are so far away from us that their light takes a long time to reach Earth. The closest star apart from the Sun is 4.2 light years away, so its light takes 4.2 years to reach Earth.

Tell the Birthday Stars computer when you were born, and it will look for a star that is your age in light years away from Earth. This means that the light we're seeing from that star today actually left the star around when you were born, and has taken your entire life to reach Earth.

My birthday star is in the constellation Pavo. It has the name 'Iota Pavonis'. It has a visual magnitude of 5.47 meaning that you could just see this star with the naked eye under the best viewing conditions.

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