|
NGC 4349
NGC 4349 is an open cluster in the constellation Crux. It was discovered by James Dunlop in 1826. It is located approximately 7,000 light years away from Earth. Characteristics There are 390 probable member stars within the angular radius of the cluster and 129 within the central part of the cluster. The tidal radius of the cluster is 17.8 - 22.8 parsecs (58 - 75 light years) and represents the average outer limit of NGC 4349, beyond which a star is unlikely to remain gravitationally bound to the cluster core. One blue straggler has been detected in the cluster. There are four Cepheid variables in the direction of the cluster, among them R and T Crucis, which, however, are not members of the cluster. R Crucis lies 16 arcminutes from the centre of the open cluster NGC 4349, which is beyond the outer limit of the cluster, and is estimated to be nearly 1 kpc closer to Earth than the cluster. The cluster has subsolar metallicity (−0.12 ± 0.06). A brown dwarf with minimu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Open Cluster
An open cluster is a type of star cluster made of up to a few thousand stars that were formed from the same giant molecular cloud and have roughly the same age. More than 1,100 open clusters have been discovered within the Milky Way galaxy, and many more are thought to exist. They are loosely bound by mutual gravity, gravitational attraction and become disrupted by close encounters with other clusters and clouds of gas as they orbit the Galactic Center. This can result in a migration to the main body of the galaxy and a loss of cluster members through internal close encounters. Open clusters generally survive for a few hundred million years, with the most massive ones surviving for a few billion years. In contrast, the more massive globular clusters of stars exert a stronger gravitational attraction on their members, and can survive for longer. Open clusters have been found only in spiral galaxy, spiral and irregular galaxy, irregular galaxies, in which active star formation is o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blue Straggler
A blue straggler is a main-sequence In astronomy, the main sequence is a continuous and distinctive band of stars that appears on plots of stellar color versus brightness. These color-magnitude plots are known as Hertzsprung–Russell diagrams after their co-developers, Ejnar Hert ... star in an open cluster, open or globular cluster that is more luminosity, luminous and stellar classification, bluer than stars at the main sequence turnoff point for the cluster. Blue stragglers were first discovered by Allan Sandage in 1953 while performing photometry (astronomy), photometry of the stars in the globular cluster Messier 3, M3. Standard theories of stellar evolution hold that the position of a star on the Hertzsprung–Russell diagram should be determined almost entirely by the initial mass of the star and its age. In a cluster, stars all formed at approximately the same time, and thus in an H–R diagram for a cluster, all stars should lie along a clearly defined curve set by the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
NGC 4349-127
NGC 4349-127 is a probable red giant star approximately 6,100 light-years away in the constellation of Crux. It is a member of the open cluster NGC 4349 (hence the name ''NGC 4349-127''). Its mass is estimated at 3.9 times Solar, and its age is about 200 million years. In 2007, this star was found to have a substellar companion. NGC 4349-127 b is a brown dwarf (based on its mass) with nearly 20 times the mass of Jupiter. Within an eccentricity of about 0.19, its orbit is moderately elliptical, about the same as Mercury in the Solar System. It orbits its host star at a distance of 2.38 AU in a period of 677.8 days. This object was discovered by Christophe Lovis and Michel Mayor of the Geneva Observatory using the radial velocity technique. However, a 2018 study with the same C. Lovis as an author found that the radial velocity signal corresponding to the proposed substellar companion was most likely caused by stellar activity, and thus the companion does not exist. Anothe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jupiter (planet)
Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a mass more than two and a half times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined, but slightly less than one-thousandth the mass of the Sun. Jupiter is the third brightest natural object in the Earth's night sky after the Moon and Venus, and it has been observed since prehistoric times. It was named after the Roman god Jupiter, the king of the gods. Jupiter is primarily composed of hydrogen, but helium constitutes one-quarter of its mass and one-tenth of its volume. It probably has a rocky core of heavier elements, but, like the other giant planets in the Solar System, it lacks a well-defined solid surface. The ongoing contraction of Jupiter's interior generates more heat than it receives from the Sun. Because of its rapid rotation, the planet's shape is an oblate spheroid: it has a slight but noticeable bulge around the equator. The outer atmosphere is div ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brown Dwarf
Brown dwarfs (also called failed stars) are substellar objects that are not massive enough to sustain nuclear fusion of ordinary hydrogen ( 1H) into helium in their cores, unlike a main-sequence star. Instead, they have a mass between the most massive gas giant planets and the least massive stars, approximately 13 to 80 times that of Jupiter (). However, they can fuse deuterium ( 2H), and the most massive ones (> ) can fuse lithium ( 7Li). Astronomers classify self-luminous objects by spectral class, a distinction intimately tied to the surface temperature, and brown dwarfs occupy types M, L, T, and Y. As brown dwarfs do not undergo stable hydrogen fusion, they cool down over time, progressively passing through later spectral types as they age. Despite their name, to the naked eye, brown dwarfs would appear in different colors depending on their temperature. The warmest ones are possibly orange or red, while cooler brown dwarfs would likely appear magenta or black to th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Metallicity
In astronomy, metallicity is the abundance of elements present in an object that are heavier than hydrogen and helium. Most of the normal physical matter in the Universe is either hydrogen or helium, and astronomers use the word ''"metals"'' as a convenient short term for ''"all elements except hydrogen and helium"''. This word-use is distinct from the conventional chemical or physical definition of a metal as an electrically conducting solid. Stars and nebulae with relatively high abundances of heavier elements are called "metal-rich" in astrophysical terms, even though many of those elements are nonmetals in chemistry. The presence of heavier elements hails from stellar nucleosynthesis, where the majority of elements heavier than hydrogen and helium in the Universe (''metals'', hereafter) are formed in the cores of stars as they evolve. Over time, stellar winds and supernovae deposit the metals into the surrounding environment, enriching the interstellar medium and providing ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
T Crucis
T Crucis is a star in the constellation Crux. A Cepheid variable, its apparent magnitude Apparent magnitude () is a measure of the brightness of a star or other astronomical object observed from Earth. An object's apparent magnitude depends on its intrinsic luminosity, its distance from Earth, and any extinction of the object's ... ranges from 6.32 to 6.83 over 6.73331 days. It is a yellow-white supergiant that pulsates between spectral types F6Ib and G2Ib. The radius is 55 times that of the Sun. References Crux (constellation) Classical Cepheid variables Crucis, T Durchmusterung objects 107447 F-type supergiants 060529 G-type supergiants {{Var-star-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
R Crucis
R Crucis is a variable star in the southern constellation of Crux. It has a yellow-white hue and is often too faint to see with the naked eye, having an apparent visual magnitude that fluctuates around 6.89. This object is located at a distance of approximately 1,600 light years from the Sun based on stellar parallax, parallax, but it is drifting closer with a radial velocity of −13.5 km/s. This is a Classical Cepheid, or Delta Cephei variable, that ranges in brightness from visual magnitude 6.40 down to 7.23 with a period of 5.82575 days. It is a supergiant star with a stellar classification that varies over each pulsation cycle, giving it a class range of F6-G2Ib-II. The star has a mean radius 44.6 times the radius of the Sun (), but the radius varies by during each pulsation. It has a near solar metallicity and the stellar atmosphere, atmospheric abundances indicate it is likely past first dredge-up. A candidate companion star has been detected at an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cepheid Variable
A Cepheid variable () is a type of star that pulsates radially, varying in both diameter and temperature and producing changes in brightness with a well-defined stable period and amplitude. A strong direct relationship between a Cepheid variable's luminosity and pulsation period established Cepheids as important indicators of cosmic benchmarks for scaling galactic and extragalactic distances. This robust characteristic of classical Cepheids was discovered in 1908 by Henrietta Swan Leavitt after studying thousands of variable stars in the Magellanic Clouds. This discovery allows one to know the true luminosity of a Cepheid by simply observing its pulsation period. This in turn allows one to determine the distance to the star, by comparing its known luminosity to its observed brightness. The term ''Cepheid'' originates from Delta Cephei in the constellation Cepheus, identified by John Goodricke in 1784, the first of its type to be so identified. The mechanics of stellar pu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Dunlop
James Dunlop FRSE (31 October 1793 – 22 September 1848) was a Scottish astronomer, noted for his work in Australia. He was employed by Sir Thomas Brisbane to work as astronomer's assistant at his private observatory, once located at Paramatta (now named Parramatta), New South Wales, about west of Sydney during the 1820s and 1830s. Dunlop was mostly a visual observer, doing stellar astrometry work for Brisbane, and after its completion, then independently discovered and catalogued many new telescopic southern double stars and deep-sky objects. He later became the Superintendent of Paramatta Observatory when it was finally sold to the New South Wales Government. Early life James Dunlop was born in Dalry, Ayrshire, Scotland, the son of John Dunlop, a weaver, and his wife Janet, ''née'' Boyle. Dunlop was educated at a primary school in Dalry and went to work at a thread factory in Beith when he was 14. He also attended a night-school in Beith kept by a man named Gardiner. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Epoch (astronomy)
In astronomy, an epoch or reference epoch is a moment in time used as a reference point for some time-varying astronomical quantity. It is useful for the celestial coordinates or orbital elements of a celestial body, as they are subject to perturbations and vary with time. These time-varying astronomical quantities might include, for example, the mean longitude or mean anomaly of a body, the node of its orbit relative to a reference plane, the direction of the apogee or aphelion of its orbit, or the size of the major axis of its orbit. The main use of astronomical quantities specified in this way is to calculate other relevant parameters of motion, in order to predict future positions and velocities. The applied tools of the disciplines of celestial mechanics or its subfield orbital mechanics (for predicting orbital paths and positions for bodies in motion under the gravitational effects of other bodies) can be used to generate an ephemeris, a table of values giving the posit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Crux (constellation)
Crux () is a constellation of the southern sky that is centred on four bright stars in a cross-shaped asterism commonly known as the Southern Cross. It lies on the southern end of the Milky Way's visible band. The name ''Crux'' is Latin for cross. Even though it is the smallest of all 88 modern constellations, Crux is among the most easily distinguished as its four main stars each have an apparent visual magnitude brighter than +2.8. It has attained a high level of cultural significance in many Southern Hemisphere states and nations. Blue-white α Crucis (Acrux) is the most southerly member of the constellation and, at magnitude 0.8, the brightest. The three other stars of the cross appear clockwise and in order of lessening magnitude: β Crucis (Mimosa), γ Crucis (Gacrux), and δ Crucis (Imai). ε Crucis (Ginan) also lies within the cross asterism. Many of these brighter stars are members of the Scorpius–Centaurus association, a large but loose group of hot blue-whit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
.svg "Click for more on -> Jupiter (planet)")
