how bright is the Sun?

How bright an object appears depends on its true brightness and on how far away it is. That's why the Sun looks so bright to us!

The Earth's atmosphere scatters the Sun's light and creates a bright sky, so it is difficult to see the stars in the daytime. Even so, planets can often be seen in the early morning or evening sky.

Venus, the brightest of the planets, can often be seen in broad daylight. It is very bright not because of its size - it is slightly smaller than Earth - but because it is close to us and has clouds that reflect almost 75% of the sunlight that falls on it.

We can't usually see stars in the daytime unless we use a telescope. Even then only the very brightest stars can be observed.

However, if we went out in space, we would be able to see the stars all the time, even close to the direction of the Sun. Here is a picture taken with SOHO-LASCO. In the centre is the Sun but it is blocked out by a disk so that we can see the light shining from the material streaming out from the Sun. The position and size of the Sun are marked by a white circle . The white dots sprinkled across the picture are stars . There’s a comet heading towards the Sun .