Sirius (a romanization of the Greek word Σείριος, Seirios, literally meaning "glowing" or "scorching") is a star system, and the brightest star in Earth's night sky. It has a visual apparent magnitude of -1.46, which makes it nearly twice as bright as Canopus, the next brightest star. The system has the Bayer designation Alpha Canis Majoris (α CMa). Sirius, which looks like a single star with the naked eye, is actually a binary star system, consisting of a white main-sequence star of spectral type A0 or A1, termed Sirius A, and a faint white dwarf companion of spectral type DA2, termed Sirius B. The distance separating Sirius A from its companion varies between 8.2 and 31.5 AU.
Sirius appears so bright not only because of its inherently high luminosity, but also due to its proximity to the Solar System. Sirius is approximately 8.6 light years (2.64 parsecs) away, making it one of the closest stars to Earth. In around 60,000 years, the star will reach a peak magnitude of -1.68. Coincidentally, around the same time, Sirius will also take its turn as the southern Pole Star around the year 66270; in that year, Sirius will come within 1.6 degrees of the south celestial pole, due to precession and proper motion of Sirius itself which moves slowly in the SSW direction.
Sirius A has around twice the mass of the Sun, and has an absolute visual magnitude of +1.43, 25 times brighter than the Sun, but it has a significantly lower luminosity than other bright stars such as Canopus, Betelgeuse, or Rigel. The binary star system is around 200 to 300 million years old, and was originally composed of two bright blue stars. The higher-mass Sirius B consumed its hydrogen fuel, and became a red giant before shedding its outer layers and collapsing into its current state as a white dwarf around 120 million years ago.