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A diagram of a typical nautical sextant, a tool used in celestial navigation to measure the angle between two objects viewed by means of its optical sight. Celestial navigation, also known as astronavigation, is the practice of position fixing using stars and other celestial bodies that enables a navigator to accurately determine their actual current physical position in space or on the ...
This article documents the most distant astronomical objects discovered and verified so far, and the time periods in which they were so classified. For comparisons with the light travel distance of the astronomical objects listed below, the age of the universe since the Big Bang is currently estimated as 13.787±0.020 Gyr.
The closest encounter to the Sun so far predicted is the low-mass orange dwarf star Gliese 710 / HIP 89825 with roughly 60% the mass of the Sun. [4] It is currently predicted to pass 0.1696 ± 0.0065 ly (10 635 ± 500 au) from the Sun in 1.290 ± 0.04 million years from the present, close enough to significantly disturb the Solar System's Oort ...
There are many stars that are in contact binary systems (where two or more stars are in physical contact with each other). Stars in the most distant orbit around one another Fomalhaut A/B/C ~0.77 parsecs (2.5 ly) Nearest multiple star system: Alpha Centauri: 1839 1.30 parsecs (4.2 ly) This was one of the first three stars to have its distance ...
Although stars are more common near the centers of each galaxy, the average distance between stars is still 160 billion (1.6 × 10 11) km (100 billion mi). That is analogous to one ping-pong ball every 3.2 km (2 mi). Thus, it is extremely unlikely that any two stars from the merging galaxies would collide. [6]
This star would be five to ten magnitudes fainter than the white dwarf Sirius B, which would make it difficult to observe. [51] Observations published in 2008 were unable to detect either a third star or a planet. An apparent "third star" observed in the 1920s is now believed to be a background object. [52]
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Rotation period with respect to distant stars, the sidereal rotation period (compared to Earth's mean Solar days) Synodic rotation period (mean Solar day) Apparent rotational period viewed from Earth Sun [i] 25.379995 days (Carrington rotation) 35 days (high latitude) 25 d 9 h 7 m 11.6 s 35 d ~28 days (equatorial) [2] Mercury: 58.6462 days [3 ...