Absolute Magnitude

Real World Example

Imagine trying to determine how loud a friend’s voice is when they are talking from different distances away from you. This is similar to understanding the true brightness of a star, which is measured by how bright it would appear if it were exactly 10 parsecs away from us. Just as you would ask your friend to stand at a consistent distance to fairly compare the loudness of their voice, astronomers use absolute magnitude to standardize the distance from which a star's brightness is measured, ensuring a fair comparison of intrinsic brightness.