How Bright Is The Sun?

The visual brightness (apparent magnitude) of the sun is -26.7.

The apparent magnitude is a measure of a star’s brightness from the Earth.

It is a reverse logarithm scale such that the brightest object will have the lowest magnitude.

An increase of 1.0 in magnitude corresponds to a brightness ratio of 5√100.

For example, the apparent magnitude of sun and the full moon is -26.74 and -12.74 respectively.

Difference in magnitude => -12.74-(-26.74) =>14.

Therefore, the sun is approximately 398107 (= 100^(14/5)) times brighter than the moon.

Professor Atom

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Professor Atom is a science enthusiast and alumni of IIT Bombay. According to him, every question can be solved with curiosity and mind mapping. ( Curiosity = Asking Questions = Learning )

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