Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. An award-winning reporter writing about stargazing and the night sky. What is the bright white star in the east right now?

A spoonful of this star's matter can weigh a billion tons. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. By developing a new theoretical ...

The sun is the biggest object in the solar system; at about 865,000 miles (1.4 million kilometers) across, it's more than 100 times wider than Earth. Despite being enormous, our star is often called a ...

It’s “common knowledge”—and the scare quotes should be a warning—that the sun is an average star. But it’s not, and in fact it’s not even close: The sun is in the top 90th percentile of stars by mass.