Iota Crateris (ι Crateris) is the

Bayer designation A Bayer designation is a stellar designation in which a specific star is identified by a Greek or Latin letter followed by the genitive form of its parent constellation's Latin name. The original list of Bayer designations contained 1,564 stars. ...

for a

binary star A binary star is a system of two stars that are gravitationally bound to and in orbit around each other. Binary stars in the night sky that are seen as a single object to the naked eye are often resolved using a telescope as separate stars, in wh ...

system in the southern

constellation A constellation is an area on the celestial sphere in which a group of visible stars forms Asterism (astronomy), a perceived pattern or outline, typically representing an animal, mythological subject, or inanimate object. The origins of the e ...

Crater Crater may refer to: Landforms *Impact crater, a depression caused by two celestial bodies impacting each other, such as a meteorite hitting a planet *Explosion crater, a hole formed in the ground produced by an explosion near or below the surfac ...

. It is faintly visible to the naked eye with an apparent visual magnitude of 5.48. According to the Bortle scale, this means it can be viewed from suburban skies at night. Based upon an annual parallax shift of 37.41

mas Mas, Más or MAS may refer to: Film and TV * Más y Menos, fictional superhero characters, from the Teen Titans animated television series * Más (Breaking Bad), "Más" (''Breaking Bad''), a season three episode of ''Breaking Bad'' Songs * Más ( ...

, Iota Crateris is located 87

light year A light-year, alternatively spelled light year, is a large unit of length used to express astronomical distances and is equivalent to about 9.46 trillion kilometers (), or 5.88 trillion miles ().One trillion here is taken to be 1012 ...

s from the Sun. This is an astrometric binary system with an estimated orbital period of roughly 79,000 years. The primary, component A, is an F-type main sequence star with a

stellar classification In astronomy, stellar classification is the classification of stars based on their stellar spectrum, spectral characteristics. Electromagnetic radiation from the star is analyzed by splitting it with a Prism (optics), prism or diffraction grati ...

of F6.5 V, which is generating energy through the thermonuclear fusion of hydrogen in its core region. It is around 4.45 billion years old with 1.19 times the

mass of the Sun The solar mass () is a standard unit of mass in astronomy, equal to approximately . It is often used to indicate the masses of other stars, as well as stellar clusters, nebulae, galaxies and black holes. It is approximately equal to the mass ...

. The star is radiating energy from its outer atmosphere at an

effective temperature The effective temperature of a body such as a star or planet is the temperature of a black body that would emit the same total amount of electromagnetic radiation. Effective temperature is often used as an estimate of a body's surface temperature ...

of 6,230 K. The companion, component B, is a

red dwarf ''Red Dwarf'' is a British science fiction comedy franchise created by Rob Grant and Doug Naylor, which primarily consists of a television sitcom that aired on BBC Two between 1988 and 1999, and on Dave since 2009, gaining a cult following. T ...

star with a probable classification of M3, although its mass estimate of 0.57 solar would be more consistent with an M0 class star. As of 2014, this magnitude 11.0 star had an

angular separation Angular distance \theta (also known as angular separation, apparent distance, or apparent separation) is the angle between the two sightlines, or between two point objects as viewed from an observer. Angular distance appears in mathematics (in pa ...

of 1.10 arc seconds along a position angle of 248°. It has a projected separation of 25 AU, which means it is positioned at least this distance away from the primary.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Iota Crateris F-type main-sequence stars Crater (constellation) Crateris, Iota Durchmusterung objects Crateris, 24 101198 056802 4488 3677 Astrometric binaries