When you go out at night, do you remember to look up at the beautiful sky full of stars? Have you ever asked yourself which is the brightest star? For those who have no idea about stars and their names, here are top 10 brightest stars in the sky.

Sirius

Sirius is the brightest star in the night sky in the constellation Canis Major the Greater Dog. What the naked eye perceives as a single star is a binary star system. It has approximately twice the mass of the sun and 8.6 light-years away. Actually, Sirius is 25 times brighter than the sun.

Canopus

Canopus is a yellow-white supergiant star that is 15,000 times as luminous as the sun. It is the second brightest star in the sky despite being 310 light-year distance from the earth.

Alpha Centauri

The Alpha Centauri star appears so bright because it consists of the closet starts in the universe. It is 4.4 light-years from the earth and compared to the sun, it’s around 1.5 times as bright.

Arcturus

Arcturus, also known as Alpha Bootis, is an orange giant star twice as massive as the Sun and 100 times brighter. It is also the closest giant star to the sun and one of the oldest recognised constellations.

Vega

Vega along with Deneb and Altair form a trio of popular stars called the summer triangle. Vega is a dwarf star that is 50 times as bright as our sun. Vega is the brightest of the three.

Capella

Capella is one component of two stars with the brightest being the Aa. The Aa is a yellow giant star that is 80 times as luminous as the sun. It is at a distance of 42 light-years from the earth.

Rigel

Rigel is a blue supergiant star that is 860 light-years away and 120,000 times as luminous as the sun. It shines brightly because of how intrinsically bright it is, but not because of its proximity.

Procyon

Procyon is different from all the above as it is a humble F-class star that is merely 40% more massive than our sun. It is only 7 times luminous than the sun and 11.5 light-years away.

Achernar

Achernar is 10 on the list, but one of the fastest-spinning stars known to humanity. It’s 7 times as massive as the sun and 3,000 as luminous. It’s also some 139 light-years away from us.

Betelgeuse

Betelgeuse was a red giant, hot O-class star before switching to helium. Despite that, it is 100,000 times as luminous as the sun and some 600 light-years away.