14 DAY TRIAL // We're so used to what our Sun looks like that it's downright impossible to imagine having any other star shining bright over our heads. Thanks to space enthusiasts with the Russian Federal Space Agency, we don't even have to try.
This is because these astronomers have just released a new and pretty amazing video showing what our planet would look like if we had some other star hanging around at the core of our Solar System.
The animation, available below, opens with Alpha Centauri, which is not really a single star, but a binary system. The stars shown after the this binary system are Sirius, Arcturus, Vega and Polaris.
Of these stars, Sirius would pretty much bathe us is a freakishly bright light nearly all the time. This is because it is about two times the size of the Sun. Arcturus, which is a red giant, would appear orange to the eye.
Mind you, this visual experiment does not take into account the fact that having our planet circle a star other than our Sun would completely transform terrestrial landscapes, maybe even make our planet uninhabitable.
If you have another couple of minutes or so to spare, do have a look at the video below this stunning animation as well. This other clip, also released by the Russian Federal Space Agency, puts planets where the moon stands.