Mira (), designation Omicron Ceti (ο Ceti, abbreviated Omicron Cet, ο Cet), is a

red-giant A red giant is a luminous giant star of low or intermediate mass (roughly 0.3–8 solar masses ()) in a late phase of stellar evolution. The outer atmosphere is inflated and tenuous, making the radius large and the surface temperature around or ...

star A star is an astronomical object comprising a luminous spheroid of plasma (physics), plasma held together by its gravity. The List of nearest stars and brown dwarfs, nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Many other stars are visible to the naked ...

estimated to be 200–400

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 The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is a nearly perfect ball of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core. The Sun radiates this energy mainly as light, ultraviolet, and infrared radi ...

in the

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 ...

Cetus Cetus () is a constellation, sometimes called 'the whale' in English. The Cetus (mythology), Cetus was a sea monster in Greek mythology which both Perseus and Heracles needed to slay. Cetus is in the region of the sky that contains other water- ...

. ο Ceti is a binary stellar system, consisting of a variable red giant (Mira A) along with a

white dwarf A white dwarf is a stellar core remnant composed mostly of electron-degenerate matter. A white dwarf is very dense: its mass is comparable to the Sun's, while its volume is comparable to the Earth's. A white dwarf's faint luminosity comes fro ...

companion (

Mira B Mira B, also known as VZ Ceti, is the companion star to the variable star Mira, separated by around . Suspected as early as 1918, it was visually confirmed in 1923 by Robert Grant Aitken, and has been observed more or less continually since ...

). Mira A is a pulsating

variable star A variable star is a star whose brightness as seen from Earth (its apparent magnitude) changes with time. This variation may be caused by a change in emitted light or by something partly blocking the light, so variable stars are classified as ...

and was the first non-

supernova A supernova is a powerful and luminous explosion of a star. It has the plural form supernovae or supernovas, and is abbreviated SN or SNe. This transient astronomical event occurs during the last evolutionary stages of a massive star or when ...

discovered, with the possible exception of

Algol ALGOL (; short for "Algorithmic Language") is a family of imperative computer programming languages originally developed in 1958. ALGOL heavily influenced many other languages and was the standard method for algorithm description used by the ...

. It is the prototype of the

Mira variable Mira variables (named for the prototype star Mira) are a class of pulsating stars characterized by very red colours, pulsation periods longer than 100 days, and amplitudes greater than one magnitude in infrared and 2.5 magnitude at visual wavelen ...

Nomenclature

ο Ceti ( Latinised to ''Omicron Ceti'') is the star's

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. ...

. It was named Mira (

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

for 'wonderful' or 'astonishing') by

Johannes Hevelius Johannes Hevelius Some sources refer to Hevelius as Polish: * * * * * * * Some sources refer to Hevelius as German: * * * * *of the Royal Society * (in German also known as ''Hevel''; pl, Jan Heweliusz; – 28 January 1687) was a councillor ...

in his ''Historiola Mirae Stellae'' (1662). In 2016, the

International Astronomical Union The International Astronomical Union (IAU; french: link=yes, Union astronomique internationale, UAI) is a nongovernmental organisation with the objective of advancing astronomy in all aspects, including promoting astronomical research, outreac ...

organized a

Working Group on Star Names The International Astronomical Union (IAU) established a Working Group on Star Names (WGSN) in May 2016 to catalog and standardize proper names for stars for the international astronomical community. It operates under Division C – Education ...

(WGSN) to catalog and standardize proper names for stars. The WGSN's first bulletin of July 2016 included a table of the first two batches of names approved by the WGSN, which included Mira for this star. MiraCC

Observation history

Evidence that the variability of Mira was known in

ancient China The earliest known written records of the history of China date from as early as 1250 BC, from the Shang dynasty (c. 1600–1046 BC), during the reign of king Wu Ding. Ancient historical texts such as the '' Book of Documents'' (early chapte ...

Babylon ''Bābili(m)'' * sux, 𒆍𒀭𒊏𒆠 * arc, 𐡁𐡁𐡋 ''Bāḇel'' * syc, ܒܒܠ ''Bāḇel'' * grc-gre, Βαβυλών ''Babylṓn'' * he, בָּבֶל ''Bāvel'' * peo, 𐎲𐎠𐎲𐎡𐎽𐎢 ''Bābiru'' * elx, 𒀸𒁀𒉿𒇷 ''Babi ...

Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders with ...

is at best only circumstantial. What is certain is that the variability of Mira was recorded by the astronomer

David Fabricius David Fabricius (9 March 1564 – 7 May 1617) was a German pastor who made two major discoveries in the early days of telescopic astronomy, jointly with his eldest son, Johannes Fabricius (1587–1615). David Fabricius (Latinization of his proper n ...

beginning on August 3, 1596. Observing what he thought was the planet

Mercury Mercury commonly refers to: * Mercury (planet), the nearest planet to the Sun * Mercury (element), a metallic chemical element with the symbol Hg * Mercury (mythology), a Roman god Mercury or The Mercury may also refer to: Companies * Merc ...

(later identified as

Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the List of Solar System objects by size, 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 ...

), he needed a reference star for comparing positions and picked a previously unremarked third-magnitude star nearby. By August 21, however, it had increased in brightness by one

magnitude Magnitude may refer to: Mathematics *Euclidean vector, a quantity defined by both its magnitude and its direction *Magnitude (mathematics), the relative size of an object *Norm (mathematics), a term for the size or length of a vector *Order of ...

, then by October had faded from view. Fabricius assumed it was a nova, but then saw it again on February 16, 1609. In 1638 Johannes Holwarda determined a period of the star's reappearances, eleven months; he is often credited with the discovery of Mira's variability.

was observing it at the same time and named it Mira in 1662, for it acted like no other known star. Ismail Bouillaud then estimated its period at 333 days, less than one day off the modern value of 332 days. Bouillaud's measurement may not have been erroneous: Mira is known to vary slightly in period, and may even be slowly changing over time. The star is estimated to be a six-billion-year-old

red giant A red giant is a luminous giant star of low or intermediate mass (roughly 0.3–8 solar masses ()) in a late phase of stellar evolution. The outer atmosphere is inflated and tenuous, making the radius large and the surface temperature around or ...

There is considerable speculation as to whether Mira had been observed prior to Fabricius. Certainly

's history (known for certain as a variable only in 1667, but with legends and such dating back to antiquity showing that it had been observed with suspicion for millennia) suggests that Mira might have been known, too. Karl Manitius, a modern translator of

Hipparchus Hipparchus (; el, Ἵππαρχος, ''Hipparkhos''; BC) was a Greek astronomer, geographer, and mathematician. He is considered the founder of trigonometry, but is most famous for his incidental discovery of the precession of the equi ...

' ''Commentary on Aratus'', has suggested that certain lines from that second-century text may be about Mira. The other pre-telescopic Western catalogs of

Ptolemy Claudius Ptolemy (; grc-gre, Πτολεμαῖος, ; la, Claudius Ptolemaeus; AD) was a mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and music theorist, who wrote about a dozen scientific treatises, three of which were of importanc ...

al-Sufi ʿAbd al-Rahman al-Sufi ( fa, عبدالرحمن صوفی; December 7, 903 – May 25, 986) was an iranianRobert Harry van Gent. Biography of al-Sūfī'. "The Persian astronomer Abū al-Husayn ‘Abd al-Rahmān ibn ‘Umar al-Sūfī was born in ...

Ulugh Beg Mīrzā Muhammad Tāraghay bin Shāhrukh ( chg, میرزا محمد طارق بن شاہ رخ, fa, میرزا محمد تراغای بن شاہ رخ), better known as Ulugh Beg () (22 March 1394 – 27 October 1449), was a Timurid sultan, as ...

and

Tycho Brahe Tycho Brahe ( ; born Tyge Ottesen Brahe; generally called Tycho (14 December 154624 October 1601) was a Danish astronomer, known for his comprehensive astronomical observations, generally considered to be the most accurate of his time. He was k ...

turn up no mentions, even as a regular star. There are three observations from Chinese and Korean archives, in 1596, 1070 and the same year when Hipparchus would have made his observation (134 BC) that are suggestive.

Distance

The distance to Mira is uncertain; pre-''

Hipparcos ''Hipparcos'' was a scientific satellite of the European Space Agency (ESA), launched in 1989 and operated until 1993. It was the first space experiment devoted to precision astrometry, the accurate measurement of the positions of celestial obj ...

'' estimates centered on 220

s; while Hipparcos data from the 2007 reduction suggest a distance of 299 light-years, with a

margin of error The margin of error is a statistic expressing the amount of random sampling error in the results of a survey. The larger the margin of error, the less confidence one should have that a poll result would reflect the result of a census of the ent ...

of 11%.

Stellar system

This binary star system consists of a red giant (Mira, designated Mira A) undergoing mass loss and a high-temperature

companion (Mira B) that is accreting mass from the primary. Such an arrangement of stars is known as a symbiotic system and this is the closest such symbiotic pair to the

. Examination of this system by the

Chandra X-ray Observatory The Chandra X-ray Observatory (CXO), previously known as the Advanced X-ray Astrophysics Facility (AXAF), is a Flagship-class space telescope launched aboard the during STS-93 by NASA on July 23, 1999. Chandra is sensitive to X-ray sources 1 ...

shows a direct mass exchange along a bridge of matter from the primary to the white dwarf. The two stars are currently separated by about 70

astronomical unit The astronomical unit (symbol: au, or or AU) is a unit of length, roughly the distance from Earth to the Sun and approximately equal to or 8.3 light-minutes. The actual distance from Earth to the Sun varies by about 3% as Earth orbits t ...

Component A

Mira A is currently an

asymptotic giant branch The asymptotic giant branch (AGB) is a region of the Hertzsprung–Russell diagram populated by evolved cool luminous stars. This is a period of stellar evolution undertaken by all low- to intermediate-mass stars (about 0.5 to 8 solar masses) lat ...

(AGB) star, in the thermally pulsing AGB phase. Each pulse lasts a decade or more, and an amount of time on the order of 10,000 years passes between each pulse. With every pulse cycle Mira increases in luminosity and the pulses grow stronger. This is also causing dynamic instability in Mira, resulting in dramatic changes in luminosity and size over shorter, irregular time periods. The overall shape of Mira A has been observed to change, exhibiting pronounced departures from symmetry. These appear to be caused by bright spots on the surface that evolve their shape on time scales of 3–14 months. Observations of Mira A in the

ultraviolet Ultraviolet (UV) is a form of electromagnetic radiation with wavelength from 10 nanometer, nm (with a corresponding frequency around 30 Hertz, PHz) to 400 nm (750 Hertz, THz), shorter than that of visible light, but longer than ...

band by the

Hubble Space Telescope The Hubble Space Telescope (often referred to as HST or Hubble) is a space telescope that was launched into low Earth orbit in 1990 and remains in operation. It was not the first space telescope, but it is one of the largest and most versa ...

have shown a plume-like feature pointing toward the companion star.

Variability

Mira A is a

, specifically the prototypical

. The 6,000 to 7,000 known stars of this class tp://cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr/pub/cats/II/250/vartype.txt GCVS: vartype.txtfrom the

GCVS The General Catalogue of Variable Stars (GCVS) is a list of variable stars. Its first edition, containing 10,820 stars, was published in 1948 by the Academy of Sciences of the USSR and edited by B. V. Kukarkin and P. P. Parenago. Second and thi ...

catalogue (statistics at the end of the file indicate 6,006 confirmed and 1,237 probable Mira variables) are all

s whose surfaces pulsate in such a way as to increase and decrease in brightness over periods ranging from about 80 to more than 1,000 days. In the particular case of Mira, its increases in brightness take it up to about

3.5 on average, placing it among the brighter stars in the Cetus constellation. Individual cycles vary too; well-attested maxima go as high as magnitude 2.0 in brightness and as low as 4.9, a range almost 15 times in brightness, and there are historical suggestions that the real spread may be three times this or more. Minima range much less, and have historically been between 8.6 and 10.1, a factor of four times in luminosity. The total swing in brightness from absolute maximum to absolute minimum (two events which did not occur on the same cycle) is 1,700 times. Mira emits the vast majority of its

radiation In physics, radiation is the emission or transmission of energy in the form of waves or particles through space or through a material medium. This includes: * ''electromagnetic radiation'', such as radio waves, microwaves, infrared, visi ...

in the

infrared Infrared (IR), sometimes called infrared light, is electromagnetic radiation (EMR) with wavelengths longer than those of visible light. It is therefore invisible to the human eye. IR is generally understood to encompass wavelengths from around ...

, and its variability in that band is only about two magnitudes. The shape of its

light curve In astronomy, a light curve is a graph of light intensity of a celestial object or region as a function of time, typically with the magnitude of light received on the y axis and with time on the x axis. The light is usually in a particular frequ ...

is of an increase over about 100 days, and the return to minimum taking twice as long. Contemporary approximate maxima for Mira: * Oct 21–31, 1999 * Sep 21–30, 2000 * Aug 21–31, 2001 * Jul 21–31, 2002 * Jun 21–30, 2003 * May 21–31, 2004 * Apr 11–20, 2005 * Mar 11–20, 2006 * Feb 1–10, 2007 * Jan 21–31, 2008 * Dec 21–31, 2008 * Nov 21–30, 2009 * Oct 21–31, 2010 * Sep 21–30, 2011 * Aug 27, 2012 * Jul 26, 2013 * May 12, 2014 * Apr 9, 2015 * Mar 6, 2016 * Jan 31, 2017 * Dec 29, 2017 * Nov 26, 2018 * Oct 24, 2019 * Sep 20, 2020 * Aug 18, 2021 * Jul 16, 2022 * Jun 13, 2023 Chi Cygni pulsations

From northern temperate latitudes, Mira is generally not visible between late March and June due to its proximity to the Sun. This means that at times several years can pass without it appearing as a naked-eye object. The pulsations of Mira variables cause the star to expand and contract, but also to change its temperature. The temperature is highest slightly after the visual maximum, and lowest slightly before minimum. The photosphere, measured at the

Rosseland radius This glossary of astronomy is a list of definitions of terms and concepts relevant to astronomy and cosmology, their sub-disciplines, and related fields. Astronomy is concerned with the study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outsid ...

, is smallest just before visual maximum and close to the time of maximum temperature. The largest size is reached slightly before the time of lowest temperature. The

bolometric luminosity Luminosity is an absolute measure of radiated electromagnetic power (light), the radiant power emitted by a light-emitting object over time. In astronomy, luminosity is the total amount of electromagnetic energy emitted per unit of time by a s ...

is proportional to the fourth power of the temperature and the square of the radius, but the radius varies by over 20% and the temperature by less than 10%. In Mira, the highest luminosity occurs close to the time when the star is hottest and smallest. The visual magnitude is determined both by the luminosity and by the proportion of the

that occurs at visual wavelengths. Only a small proportion of the radiation is emitted at visual wavelengths and this proportion is very strongly influenced by the temperature (

Planck's law In physics, Planck's law describes the spectral density of electromagnetic radiation emitted by a black body in thermal equilibrium at a given temperature , when there is no net flow of matter or energy between the body and its environment. At ...

). Combined with the overall luminosity changes, this creates the very big

visual 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 ...

variation with the maximum occurring when the temperature is high.

Infrared Infrared (IR), sometimes called infrared light, is electromagnetic radiation (EMR) with wavelengths longer than those of visible light. It is therefore invisible to the human eye. IR is generally understood to encompass wavelengths from around ...

VLTI The Very Large Telescope (VLT) is a telescope facility operated by the European Southern Observatory on Cerro Paranal in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile. It consists of four individual telescopes, each with a primary mirror 8.2 m across, ...

measurements of Mira at phases 0.13, 0.18, 0.26, 0.40 and 0.47, show that the radius varies from at phase 0.13 just after maximum to at phase 0.40 approaching minimum. The temperature at phase 0.13 is and at phase 0.26 about halfway from maximum to minimum. The luminosity is calculated to be at phase 0.13 and at phase 0.26. The pulsations of Mira have the effect of expanding its photosphere by around 50% compared to a non-pulsating star. In the case of Mira, if it was not pulsating it is modelled to have a radius of only around .

Mass loss

Ultraviolet studies of Mira by

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...

's Galaxy Evolution Explorer (

GALEX Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX or Explorer 83 or SMEX-7) was a NASA orbiting space telescope designed to observe the universe in ultraviolet wavelengths to measure the history of star formation in the universe. In addition to paving the way ...

) space telescope have revealed that it sheds a trail of material from the outer envelope, leaving a tail 13 light-years in length, formed over tens of thousands of years. It is thought that a hot

bow wave A bow wave is the wave that forms at the bow of a ship when it moves through the water. As the bow wave spreads out, it defines the outer limits of a ship's wake. A large bow wave slows the ship down, is a risk to smaller boats, and in a harbor ...

of compressed plasma/gas is the cause of the tail; the bow wave is a result of the interaction of the stellar wind from Mira A with gas in interstellar space, through which Mira is moving at an extremely high speed of . The tail consists of material stripped from the head of the bow wave, which is also visible in ultraviolet observations. Mira's bow shock will eventually evolve into a

planetary nebula A planetary nebula (PN, plural PNe) is a type of emission nebula consisting of an expanding, glowing shell of ionized gas ejected from red giant stars late in their lives. The term "planetary nebula" is a misnomer because they are unrelated to ...

, the form of which will be considerably affected by the motion through the

interstellar medium In astronomy, the interstellar medium is the matter and radiation that exist in the space between the star systems in a galaxy. This matter includes gas in ionic, atomic, and molecular form, as well as dust and cosmic rays. It fills interstella ...

(ISM).

Component B

The companion star is away from the main star. It was resolved by the

in 1995, when it was 70

s from the primary; and results were announced in 1997. The HST ultraviolet images and later X-ray images by the Chandra space telescope show a spiral of gas rising off Mira in the direction of Mira B. The companion's

orbital period The orbital period (also revolution period) is the amount of time a given astronomical object takes to complete one orbit around another object. In astronomy, it usually applies to planets or asteroids orbiting the Sun, moons orbiting planets ...

around Mira is approximately 400 years. In 2007, observations showed a

protoplanetary disc A protoplanetary disk is a rotating circumstellar disc of dense gas and dust surrounding a young newly formed star, a T Tauri star, or Herbig Ae/Be star. The protoplanetary disk may also be considered an accretion disk for the star itself, be ...

around the companion, Mira B. This disc is being accreted from material in the

solar wind The solar wind is a stream of charged particles released from the upper atmosphere of the Sun, called the corona. This plasma mostly consists of electrons, protons and alpha particles with kinetic energy between . The composition of the sola ...

from Mira and could eventually form new planets. These observations also hinted that the companion was a

main-sequence star 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 ...

of around 0.7

solar mass 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 ...

and

spectral type 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 ...

K, instead of a white dwarf as originally thought. However, in 2010 further research indicated that Mira B is, in fact, a white dwarf.

References

External links

Speeding Bullet Star Leaves Enormous Streak Across Sky
at

Caltech The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech or CIT)The university itself only spells its short form as "Caltech"; the institution considers other spellings such a"Cal Tech" and "CalTech" incorrect. The institute is also occasional ...

Mira has tail nearly 13 light years in length (BBC)
*

Astronomy Picture of the Day Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) is a website provided by NASA and Michigan Technological University (MTU). According to the website, "Each day a different image or photograph of our universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written ...

:
1998-10-11

*
lightcurve
of Mira from the BAV. * Universe Today
That's Not a Comet, that's a Star

OMICRON CETI (Mira)

Winter 2006: Mira revisited
{{Sky, 02, 19, 20.792, -, 02, 58, 39.50 Ceti, Omicron Binary stars Cetus (constellation) Mira variables M-type giants Stars with proper names Ceti, 68 010826 0681 014386 Emission-line stars Durchmusterung objects