What is the brightest star with a known planet?
The brightest star in Earth's sky known to hold a planet is Pollux, at magnitude 1.13, bright enough to find with the naked eye on any clear night. Everything about Pollux →
| # | Star | Apparent magnitude | Distance |
|---|---|---|---|
| ★ 1 | Pollux | magnitude 1.13 | 33.7 ly |
| 2 | Algieba | magnitude 2.00 | 130 ly |
| 3 | Hamal | magnitude 2.01 | 65.9 ly |
| 4 | Kochab | magnitude 2.06 | 126 ly |
| 5 | Mirach | magnitude 2.07 | 199 ly |
| 6 | gam Cep | magnitude 3.23 | 46.0 ly |
| 7 | iot Dra | magnitude 3.30 | 102 ly |
| 8 | nu Oph | magnitude 3.31 | 151 ly |
| 9 | omi UMa | magnitude 3.35 | 179 ly |
| 10 | HD 112300 | magnitude 3.40 | 202 ly |
| 11 | bet Cnc | magnitude 3.51 | 290 ly |
| 12 | eps Tau | magnitude 3.52 | 155 ly |
| 13 | mu2 Sco | magnitude 3.56 | distance unknown |
| 14 | gam Psc | magnitude 3.69 | 135 ly |
| 15 | Ran (Epsilon Eridani) | magnitude 3.72 | 10.4 ly |
| 16 | bet Pic | magnitude 3.85 | 64.4 ly |
| 17 | mu Leo | magnitude 3.87 | 106 ly |
| 18 | gam Lib | magnitude 3.91 | 155 ly |
| 19 | 7 CMa | magnitude 3.95 | 64.6 ly |
| 20 | b Cen A | magnitude 4.01 | 320 ly |
| 21 | ups And | magnitude 4.10 | 43.7 ly |
| 22 | eps CrB | magnitude 4.13 | 228 ly |
| 23 | kap And | magnitude 4.14 | 163 ly |
| 24 | 91 Aqr | magnitude 4.24 | 144 ly |
| 25 | 82 G. Eridani | magnitude 4.26 | 19.6 ly |
Showing the top 25 of 4,442 that qualify.
Apparent magnitude runs backwards: the smaller the number, the brighter the star, and anything below about 6 is visible without equipment from a dark site. The stars at the top of this table are naked-eye objects with names that predate telescopes, which makes them the rare case where you can walk outside and look directly at a star you know has a planet.
Brightness here is how the star looks from Earth, which mixes its real output with its distance. A modest star nearby can outshine a monster far away. Planets around bright stars are also disproportionately easy to study, because a bright star gives a spectrograph more light to work with, so this list overlaps heavily with the systems we know best.
What is the brightest star with a known planet?
The brightest star in Earth's sky known to hold a planet is Pollux, at magnitude 1.13, bright enough to find with the naked eye on any clear night.
Can I see a star with a planet without a telescope?
Yes. Pollux shines at magnitude 1.13, comfortably naked-eye, and several other stars on this table are too. You will not see the planet, which is billions of times fainter, but you can look straight at the star it orbits.
What does apparent magnitude mean?
It is a brightness scale where lower is brighter and each step of 1 is about 2.5 times more light. The Sun is magnitude −27, the full Moon about −13, the faintest naked-eye stars around 6, and the deepest telescope images reach past 30.
Are planets easier to find around bright stars?
Easier to confirm and to study, yes. More light means a cleaner spectrum and a better wobble measurement. But brightness is not what surveys select for: Kepler and TESS stared at whole fields of mostly faint stars, which is why the catalog as a whole is dominated by stars you cannot see.
Keep exploring: all records · the brightest stars in the sky · the closest stars with planets