Part one of term paper
Magnitudes The magnitude scale was invented by an ancient Greek astronomer named Hipparchus in about 150 BC He ranked the he could see in terms of their brightness, with 1 representing the brightest down to 6 representing the faintest. Modern astronomy has extended this system to stars brighter than Hipparchus' 1st magnitude stars and ones m ...

Part two of term paper
... very bright to make this list from its greater distance. Rigel, of nearly the same absolute magnitude, but closer, stands even higher in the list. Note that most of these distances are really nearby, on a cosmic scale, and that they are generally uncertain by at least 20%. All stars are variable to some extent; those which are visibly variable are marked with a "v". What are apparent and absolute magnitudes? Apparent is how bright the appear to us in the sky. The scale is somewhat arbitrary, ...