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VertigoOne1 t1_j6da1oh wrote

I remember reading somewhere that the sun is not even the brightest star in the sky when you get out to the oort cloud, but certainly it would be visible, but we tend to make constellations with bright stars, so probably not very far off. A quick google, maybe about 60 lightyears or so and it would be barely visible, but 0-40’s it might be in a constellation.

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redstercoolpanda t1_j6dlhzt wrote

but how would that be possible? considering it would be by far the closest. is it just a case of bigger stars making more light even if there farther away?

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VertigoOne1 t1_j6dtgn8 wrote

Because our sun is a dwarf star, it is actually very puny. The only reason it is so bright is because it is so close, Sirius is 9 lightyears away and is 25 times more luminous, and absolute magnitude of 1.45, the sun is 4.85. Canopus is 300lj away, is the second brightest star in the sky. Our sun is very lightweight. If you put canopus at the distance of Sirius it would be brighter than the moon.

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citybadger t1_j6ebeq3 wrote

The Sun is below the average but above the median brightness, because so many stars are red dwarfs.

The population is stars is like rocks on a beach. Most are grains of sand. Then there are pebbles of various sizes. And then there are a few rocks and even giant boulders.

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DigitalBleeD t1_j6n4yhy wrote

Stealing this analogy to teach star scale in Highschool.

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cantwejustbefiends t1_j6fgd41 wrote

This is more a testament to how large the Oort Cloud is since the sun is pretty average. Sirius is 25x the brightness of our sun, but the edge of the Oort Cloud is 200,000x farther from the sun than Earth is (Pluto and the Kaiper Belt are only 40x and 50x). If Earth was at the edge of the cloud, Sirius would be only 3x farther then the sun; so at 25x brighter it would be brighter. But within a 20 ly distance our sun is one of the brightest, and of the 130 closest stars our sun is actually the 7th brightest.

The Oort Cloud reaches out 3 ly, and for comparison our closest neighboring system, Alpha Centauri, is 4.3 ly. If you were at the edge of the Oort Cloud, our sun would be the 5th closest star to you.

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malex117 t1_j6eobfo wrote

This was amazing information thank you! Please take my poor award 🥇

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