Apparent Magnitude and the Degrees of Glory

A while back in Elders Quorum we talked about the plan of salvation, including the three degrees of glory. In 1 Cor. 15:41–42 it says:

There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars: for one star differeth from another star in glory.

So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption:

That got me thinking—just how bright are those luminaries in comparison with each other? So I looked it up. Astronomers use apparent magnitude to define how bright something looks from where you’re standing, here on Earth. This is different than how bright they would be if we observed them all from the same distance, or absolute magnitude. But Paul was only interested in comparing how bright things are to the earthly observer, so I’ll use apparent magnitude. The scale used for determining apparent magnitude is a logarithmic scale where the smaller the number, the brighter the object appears.[1] So here are the apparent magnitudes I looked up:

The Sun: -26.73

The full Moon: -12.6

Sirius (the brightest star in the sky): -1.47

The dimmest star you can see in the city: 3

The dimmest star you can see in the countryside: 6.5 [1]

This is rather interesting, but this doesn’t mean that the Sun is 14.13 times brighter than the full Moon. Keep in mind that this is in a logarithmic scale. To compare apparent magnitudes, you use the equation:

v = 2.512^{(fainter magnitude − brighter magnitude)}

I won’t make you do all the work. Here’s what I found (with some rounding):

The Sun is:

449 thousand times brighter than the full Moon

13 billion times brighter than Sirius

781 billion times brighter than the dimmest star you can see in the city

20 trillion times brighter than the dimmest star you can see in the countryside

The Moon is:

28 thousand times brighter than Sirius

2 million times brighter than the dimmest star you can see in the city

44  million times brighter than the dimmest star you can see in the countryside

Sirius is:

61 times brighter than the dimmest star you can see in the city

2 thousand times brighter than the dimmest star you can see in the countryside

The faintest star visible from the city is:

25 times brighter than the faintest star visible from the countryside

Now, I doubt the Lord designed the Sun, Moon, and stars to represent exactly the differences in glory between the kingdoms—the Celestial Kingdom probably isn’t exactly 449 thousand times more glorious than the Terrestrial Kingdom. It could be more, it could be less. But, really, that’s immaterial. The point of the comparison is that the difference in glory is vast and I think the apparent magnitudes of the Sun, Moon, and stars illustrate that point very well. Obviously the Celestial Kingdom is a much better place than the Terrestrial or Telestial Kingdoms.[2]

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Notes:

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apparent_magnitude.

[2] For those who are unsure what the terms "Celestial Kingdom", "Terrestrial Kingdom", and/or "Telestial Kingdom" mean, I recommend you visit here, here, and here, where you can learn more about LDS beliefs. If you have more questions about what happens when we die, ask and maybe I'll do a full post on the topic.

Image attributions:

The sun is by Science@NASA, available at http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/multimedia/display.cfm?IM_ID=106.
The moon is by Kimmo Kulovesi, available at http://www.flickr.com/photos/arkku/2278750770/.
The stars are by Philipp Salzgeber, available at http://www.salzgeber.at/astro/pics/20081126_heart/index.html.