ι Pictoris, Latinized from Iota Pictoris, is a suspected multiple

star system A star system or stellar system is a small number of stars that orbit each other, bound by gravitational attraction. A large group of stars bound by gravitation is generally called a '' star cluster'' or '' galaxy'', although, broadly speak ...

in the

southern Southern may refer to: Businesses * China Southern Airlines, airline based in Guangzhou, China * Southern Airways, defunct US airline * Southern Air, air cargo transportation company based in Norwalk, Connecticut, US * Southern Airways Express, M ...

Pictor

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 ...

. It is visible to the naked eye as a dim, yellow-white-hued point of light with a combined apparent visual magnitude of 5.28. The two resolvable components have 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 , equivalent to a physical projected separation of around . They are located at a distance of around 127–131

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, based on

parallax Parallax is a displacement or difference in the apparent position of an object viewed along two different lines of sight and is measured by the angle or semi-angle of inclination between those two lines. Due to foreshortening, nearby objects ...

. The two visible components appear as F-type main-sequence stars: the magnitude 5.63 component A has 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 F0 V, while the cooler, fainter secondary is of class F4 V. Both are themselves are suspected

spectroscopic binary A binary star is a system of two star, stars that are gravity, 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 separa ...

stars consisting of roughly equal components. Component B actually has a higher estimated mass than Component A, although the radius of B is smaller. They are both more luminous than the Sun, and have an estimated age of around 500–600 million years.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Iota Pictoris F-type main-sequence stars Binary stars Spectroscopic binaries Pictor Pictoris, Iota Durchmusterung objects 31203 4 022531 4 1563 4