how far are the other stars

The nearest star to the Sun is Proxima Centauri - 4 light years away

Credit Dr Russell Cockman

This is a picture of the Milky Way, it's the galaxy in which we live. It's 75,000 light years across and contains about 100 billion stars - many of them just like the Sun.

To see the Milky Way you need to go outside on a really dark, clear night away from street lights. It's best to look for it during the summer months (in the northern hemisphere).

The Milky Way is a spiral galaxy, very similar to this one, which is called the Andromeda galaxy. The Andromeda galaxy can be seen without a telescope. That makes it the most distant object (2 million light years) you can see using only your eyes!