STAR PROFILE Sirius
The brightest star in our night sky, it’s very hard to miss Sirius’ bright blue-white glow with its high magnitude of -1.46. Although the star’s official designation is Alpha Canis Majoris after the constellation that hosts it, the star has been referred to by many different names by various cultures since ancient times. The name Sirius comes from the Greek word for ‘glowing’ or ‘scorching’, fitting for a star so intense.
Sirius isn’t actually that bright in comparison to giant stars like Rigel in Orion, however. It appears so vivid to us because it is one of our closest stellar neighbours. Lying only 8.58 light years from us, it is the 5th-closest stellar system to home. Sirius is actually getting closer to us at a rate of 7.6 kilometres (4.7 miles) per second, meaning it will gradually glow even brighter in the sky in the future.
In 1844, German astronomer Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel observed that Sirius behaved strangely, following a wobbly course through the sky. He suggested that
