Standing in silence while gazing towards the heavens, you try to take it all in. The grand number of stars and the softly glowing ribbon of the Milky Way overwhelm your understanding of what lies above. You realize that the distances to the stars are vast, too vast really to meaningfully contemplate.
How close is the closest star visible in the summer sky? The nearest is a faint, nondescript outlier positioned along the Milky Way’s eastern shore in the constellation Cygnus. Known as 61 Cygni, it shines “only” 11 light-years from our vantage point on Earth. Just rattling off that value doesn’t really do its incredible distance much justice. Instead, how about slowly saying “67 trillion—that’s 67 followed by 12 zeroes—miles?”
The farthest? Try the 3,600 light-year distant Mu Sagittarii (sometimes called Polis), a moderately bright star often lost in the heart of the southern Milky Way. To better appreciate its immense distance, imagine all that has transpired on Earth since 1600 BC when the light you see left that star.
Those two stellar extremes bracket the distances to the nearly 2,000 other stars visible from a dark location far from obscuring city lights. Make the trek to a state park, or to an overlook along the Blue Ridge Parkway. Try to take it all in.
The story above first appeared in our July / August 2022 issue.
