Save. Until the end of his life, in 2022, Don continued his visual comet hunting and Messier Marathons from Arizona, where he lived with his wife Michele. This black hole releases huge amounts of energy as it consumes matter falling into it and causing the centre to shine far brighter than its surroundings. [5], The royal stars were used primarily for navigation. Its traditional name (Regulus) means "the little king". The stars in the galaxys central region are very old. Bluish-white Regulus, the brightest star in Leo, lies high in the south, while another moderately bright star, Alphard, in the constellation Hydra, the Water Snake, is a bit below Regulus.. In India it was known as Magh ("the Mighty"), in Sogdiana Magh ("the Great"), in Persia Miyan ("the Centre") and also as Venant, one of the four 'royal stars' of the Persian monarchy. Ultraviolet emissions from the galaxys central region suggest that it has a supermassive black hole at its core. Regulus star is also known as Basiliskos, Cor Leonis (Lions Heart), Qalb al-Asad and Rex. Leo constellation lies in the northern sky. They are located at an angular distance of 177 arc seconds from Regulus A. History and mythology of Aldebaran. It has 11 stars with known planets. Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. Regulus is also occulted by asteroids. Regulus, along with five slightly dimmer stars (Zeta Leonis, Mu Leonis, Gamma Leonis, Epsilon Leonis, and Eta Leonis) have collectively been called 'the Sickle', which is an asterism that marks the head of Leo. Regulus was seen as the main star because it was in the constellation of Leo, giving it the power of the lion, signifying the strength of kings with large implications. On March 20, 2014, the star was occulted by 163 Erigone, a relatively large asteroid first discovered in April 1876. It contains 13 named stars. The galaxy is known to have a supermassive black hole at its centre. It set upon the local inhabitants and could not be defeated because it had impenetrable skin. . While Regulus, like the sun, fuses hydrogen to helium in its center, it is more massive than the sun and therefore hotter and brighter. Because it is bright and prominent, ancient Persians honored Aldebaran one of the Four Royal Stars, the other three being Regulus, Antares and Fomalhaut. Leo is one of the 15 equatorial constellations. It is a bluish star, and it can be seen all around the globe. [1] The Persians believed that the sky was divided into four districts with each district being guarded by one of the four Royal Stars. The primary star of Regulus A is a young star, only a few million years old, and has 3.5 times the mass of the Sun. The distances between B and C ranged from 4.0 to 2.5 arc seconds between 1867 and 1943. Later, as the stars of Aries took the spring equinox position, Aldebaran moved to the cross-quarter day of May 1, and Regulus took over August 1. The star is also one of the vertices of the Spring Triangle, a conspicuous asterism visible in the evening sky during the northern hemisphere spring. The poles are said to be gravity brightened, while the equator is gravity darkened. The poles of Regulus are five times brighter than the equator. Cor Caroli is another name for Regulus. It would also be the star system from which the lions and the lion Gods (half man, half human) originally came. It has an apparent magnitude of 12.6. Regulus B and Regulus C share a common proper motion. Regulus is the only 1st magnitude star to sit almost squarely on the ecliptic, which marks the path of the sun, moon and planets across our sky. The stars Greek name, Basiliscos, had the same meaning. Regulus, Alpha Leonis, Leo, 32 Leonis, HR 3982, HIP 49669, FK5 380, GJ 9316, GCTP 2384.00, 79.3 0.7 light-years (24.3 0.2 parsecs), Leo A, HD 87901, SAO 98967, LTT 12716, BD+122149, TYC 833-1381-1, GC 13926, GCRV 6417, 79.02 0.05 light-years (24.23 0.02 parsecs), Leo B/C, HD 87884, SAO 98966, LTT 12714, BD+122147, TYC 833-134-1, GC 13922, GCRV 6416, PPM 127133, Gaia DR2 3880785530720066176, Gaia DR1 3880785526425032832. Merak and Dubhe, the outer stars of the Big Dippers bowl, also point in the general direction of the constellation Leo. The stars traditional name, Alterf, comes from the Arabic a-arf, which means the view (of the lion).. In the last 40 years of his life, he completed over 50 Messier Marathons and wrote 2 books on the subject. The Persians might have thought otherwise if they knew what astronomers know now: it rotates extremely fast, and doesnt need to go a whole lot faster to tear itself to pieces, and like Uranus its axis is tilted, so that the poles are roughly where the equator should be. Search reviews. "We don't have any idea why it's really doing that," McAlister said. Regulus A is a spectroscopic binary star composed of a blue-white main sequence star belonging to the spectral class B7 V, and a companion star which cannot be resolved, but is believed to be a white dwarf. Because Regulus can stray within the ecliptic, or the path upon which the sun and planets travel, it is very occasionally eclipsed by one of the planets or an asteroid. Algieba (Gamma Leonis) lies on the lions neck, even though its name means the forehead. Zosma (Delta Leonis) marks the lions rump. We left my fathers precious urologist because of the wait time . In Persian astronomy, the sky was divided into four districts and each district was guarded by one of the four bright stars. It emits only about 0.1% of the Suns energy, has 8% of the Suns mass, and only 16% the solar radius. The best time of the year to observe the stars and deep sky objects of Leo is during the month of April, when the constellation is high above the horizon in the evening. The central region of M95 has a ring-shaped starburst region around the core with a diameter spanning about 2,000 light years. Something went wrong while submitting the form. [3], By 700 BCE the Assyrians had essentially mapped the ecliptic cycle because of the four stars and were in result able to map the constellations, distinguishing them from the planets and the fixed stars.[4]. This star is part of the Diamond of Virgo, along with Denebola (in Leos tail), Arcturus in Botes and Spica in Virgo. Gamma Leonis is a double star in Leo. The stars traditional name, Zosma, comes from ancient Greek and means the girdle. Zosma is located on the lions hip. Regulus ranks 21st in the list of brightest stars in our sky. Lambda Leonis is a K5-class star, about 336 light years from the Sun. NGC 3357 is an elliptical galaxy in Leo. Zeta Leonis is a giant star belonging to the spectral class F0 III. In 1978, Don was one of the independent inventors of the Messier Marathon, an attempt to find and view all 110 galaxies, clusters, and nebulae in one night. . Regulus has a mass 3.8 times that of the Sun and a radius 4.35 times solar. If you like the image at the top, click here. It has 214% of the solar radius and is about 15 times more luminous than the Sun. So bright planets sometimes pass near Regulus.. If we go across the sea to Egypt, we can see a different take on the constellation Leo myth. Elizabeth Howell (she/her), Ph.D., is a staff writer in the spaceflight channel since 2022 covering diversity, education and gaming as well. Denebola exhibits variations in luminosity of 0.025 magnitudes about ten times a day. Along with the brighter Vega, Altair, and Achernar, Regulus is one of the brightest and best-known examples of gravity darkening. It would be another 40 years before anyone viewed it visually. In ancient Greece, the star was known as Basiliskos (little king), while in Rome it was known as Basilica Stella. Photo taken Oct. 1, 2013. source of its extremely rapid spin and strange motion, Encyclopedia of Astronomy and Astrophysics, would only need to rotate about 10 percent faster to tear itself to pieces, Star Trek's bad captains: Celebrating Starfleet's less-than-perfect commanding officers, Best free Star Trek: TNG & Picard 3D prints. It has a visual magnitude of 10.2 and is approximately 32 million light years distant. The Greeks associated Leo with the Nemean lion, the beast defeated by Heracles during the first of his twelve labours. Its traditional name, Adhafera, comes from the Arabic al-afrah, which means the curl or the braid.. The galaxy can be found below the bright star Theta Leonis. Its traditional name, Al Minliar, comes from the Arabic Minkhir al-Asad, which means the muzzle of the lion. The star has the stellar classification K2III. Visit our corporate site (opens in new tab). Babylonians called it Sharru ("the King"), and it marked the 15th ecliptic constellation. Indeed, the lowest mass white dwarfs are usually found in binary systems where they lost a significant fraction of their mass.". The binary pair (two dwarfs, orange and red) are about 4,200 Earth-sun distances (astronomical units, or AU) away from Regulus and take about 130,000 years to complete one orbit, Darling said. Mira variables are pulsating variable stars that are in the late stage of evolution, very red in colour, and with pulsation periods longer than 100 days. The brightest star in. Regulus B and Regulus C share a common proper motion. However, although it looks like one star to the eye, its actually four stars. It has a surface temperature of 4,885 Kelvin (8,333 F or 4,612 C), and it shines at a magnitude of 8.1. Amateur astronomers can view it, but this requires dark skies and a large telescope. Together with the bright Spica in Virgo and Arcturus in Botes, Regulus forms the Spring Triangle, another prominent asterism appearing in the evening sky from March to May. It has an estimated age of at least a billion years. Regulus can be used to find several bright galaxies that lie in the region of the sky between the Lions heart and the fainter Denebola, Beta Leonis, the star that marks the Lions tail. It is easy to observe in a small telescope under good conditions and appears as a bright double star with orange red and greenish yellow components. It is almost finished fusing hydrogen into helium in its core. Her latest book, "Why Am I Taller? It has a visual magnitude of 10.6/10.9. The star is a very fast spinner, with a projected rotational velocity of 318 km/s at the equator. Venus last occulted Regulus on July 7, 1959. Consequently, its apparent magnitude varies too, ranging from 1.19 to 10.96. Because of its proximity to Earth, the star is often mentioned in works of fiction. [4] It was discovered by the German astronomer Albert Marth on April 5, 1864. It has the Bayer designation designated Leonis, which is Latinized to Alpha Leonis, and abbreviated Alpha Leo or Leo. Earendel is almost twice as distant, lying 28 billion light-years away. Stretching across 947 square degrees of the sky, it is the third largest zodiac constellation (after Virgo and Aquarius) and the 12th largest of all constellations. Look through a small telescope using at least 50x magnification, and you can see Regulus as two objects separated by 177 arcseconds.

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