Do we call other stars "suns," or is that just the name we gave to our star in our solar system?
1 Answer
Jan 20, 2016
The terms sun and star are interchangeable.
Explanation:
We tend to use the word sun for our star and the word star for others. Though it is also common to refer to a planet's sun for exoplanets.
It is quite complicated as most stars have several names and our Sun doesn't have an official name. Some people give the word sun a capital letter to make it a proper noun when referring to our Sun.
Stars can have actual names and another name indicating where it lies in a constellation. For example the star Rigel in the constellation Orion is also known as Beta Orionis.
It is further complicated by the fact that there are several star catalogues and a star can have a different name in each.
