In speaking of the “size” of the stars we really mean their luminosity, or the amount of light radiated from them. When a star is said to be a thousand times greater than the sun, the meaning is that the amount of light that it gives would, if both were viewed from the same distance, be equal to a thousand times the amount given by the sun. We have no direct knowledge of the actual size of the stars as globes, because the most powerful telescope is unable to reveal the real disk of a star. In comparing the luminosity of a star with that of the sun its distance must be taken into account. Most of the stars are so far away that we really know nothing of their distances, but there are fifty or more which lie within a distance not too great to enable us to obtain an approximate idea of what it is. The nearest star in the northern sky is so far from being the brightest that it can barely be seen with the naked eye. It must be very much less luminous than the sun. On the other hand, some very bright stars lie at a distance so immense that it can hardly be estimated, and they must exceed the sun in luminosity hundreds and even thousands of times.