Pictor
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Pictor is a
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 ...
in the
Southern Celestial Hemisphere The southern celestial hemisphere, also called the Southern Sky, is the southern half of the celestial sphere; that is, it lies south of the celestial equator. This arbitrary sphere, on which seemingly fixed stars form constellations, appears ...
, located between the star
Canopus Canopus is the brightest star in the southern constellation of Carina (constellation), Carina and the list of brightest stars, second-brightest star in the night sky. It is also Bayer designation, designated α Carinae, which is Lat ...
and the
Large Magellanic Cloud The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), or Nubecula Major, is a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way. At a distance of around 50 kiloparsecs (≈160,000  light-years), the LMC is the second- or third-closest galaxy to the Milky Way, after the ...
. Its name is
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
painter Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ai ...
, and is an abbreviation of the older name Equuleus Pictoris (the "painter's
easel An easel is an upright support used for displaying and/or fixing something resting upon it, at an angle of about 20° to the vertical. In particular, easels are traditionally used by painters to support a painting while they work on it, normally ...
"). Normally represented as an easel, Pictor was named by Abbé
Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille Abbé Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille (; 15 March 171321 March 1762), formerly sometimes spelled de la Caille, was a kingdom of France, French astronomer and geodesist who named 14 out of the IAU designated constellations, 88 constellations. From 1750 ...
in the 18th century. The constellation's brightest star is
Alpha Pictoris Alpha Pictoris (α Pic, α Pictoris) is the brightest star in the southern constellation of Pictor. It has an apparent visual magnitude of 3.27, which is bright enough to be Bortle Dark-Sky Scale, viewed from urban areas in the southern ...
, a white main-sequence star around 97 
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 away from Earth. Pictor also hosts
RR Pictoris RR Pictoris, also known as Nova Pictoris 1925, is a cataclysmic variable star system that flared up as a nova that lit up in the constellation Pictor in 1925. It was discovered by South African amateur astronomer R. Watson who lived in ...
, a cataclysmic variable star system that flared up as a
nova A nova (plural novae or novas) is a transient astronomical event that causes the sudden appearance of a bright, apparently "new" star (hence the name "nova", which is Latin for "new") that slowly fades over weeks or months. Causes of the dramati ...
, reaching apparent (visual) magnitude 1.2 in 1925 before fading into obscurity. Pictor has attracted attention because of its second-brightest star Beta Pictoris, 63.4 light-years distant from Earth, which is surrounded by an unusual
dust disk A debris disk (American English), or debris disc (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English), is a circumstellar disk of dust and debris in orbit around a star. Sometimes these disks contain prominent rings, as seen in the ima ...
rich in
carbon Carbon () is a chemical element with the symbol C and atomic number 6. It is nonmetallic and tetravalent In chemistry, the valence (US spelling) or valency (British spelling) of an element is the measure of its combining capacity with o ...
, as well as an
exoplanet An exoplanet or extrasolar planet is a planet outside the Solar System. The first possible evidence of an exoplanet was noted in 1917 but was not recognized as such. The first confirmation of detection occurred in 1992. A different planet, init ...
(extrasolar planet). Another five stars in the constellation have been observed to have planets. Among them is
HD 40307 HD 40307 is an orange ( K-type) main-sequence star located approximately 42 light-years away in the constellation of Pictor (the Easel), taking its primary name from its Henry Draper Catalogue designation. It is calculated to be sligh ...
, an
orange dwarf A K-type main-sequence star, also referred to as a K-type dwarf or an orange dwarf, is a main-sequence (hydrogen-burning) star of spectral type K and luminosity class V. These stars are intermediate in size between red M-type main-sequence stars ...
that has six planets orbiting it, one of which—
HD 40307 g HD 40307 g is an exoplanet candidate suspected to be orbiting in the habitable zone of HD 40307. It is located 42 light-years away in the direction of the southern constellation Pictor. The planet was discovered by the radial velocity method, ...
—is a potential
super-Earth A super-Earth is an extrasolar planet with a mass higher than Earth's, but substantially below those of the Solar System's ice giants, Uranus and Neptune, which are 14.5 and 17 times Earth's, respectively. The term "super-Earth" refers only to ...
in the
circumstellar habitable zone In astronomy and astrobiology, the circumstellar habitable zone (CHZ), or simply the habitable zone, is the range of orbits around a star within which a planetary surface can support liquid water given sufficient atmospheric pressure.J. F. Kas ...
.
Kapteyn's Star Kapteyn's Star is a class M1 red subdwarf about 12.83 light-years from Earth in the southern constellation Pictor; it is the closest halo star to the Solar System. With a magnitude of nearly 9 it is visible through binoculars or a te ...
, the nearest star in Pictor to Earth, 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 ...
located 12.76 light-years away that was found to have two super-Earths in orbit in 2014.
Pictor A Pictor A, around 485 million light-years away in the constellation Pictor, is a double-lobed broad-line radio galaxy and a powerful source of radio waves in the Southern Celestial Hemisphere. From a supermassive black hole at its centre, a relati ...
is a
radio galaxy A radio galaxy is a galaxy with giant regions of radio emission extending well beyond its visible structure. These energetic radio lobes are powered by jets from its active galactic nucleus. They have luminosities up to 1039  W at radio wa ...
that is shooting an 800,000 light-year long jet of plasma from a
supermassive black hole A supermassive black hole (SMBH or sometimes SBH) is the largest type of black hole, with its mass being on the order of hundreds of thousands, or millions to billions of times the mass of the Sun (). Black holes are a class of astronomical obj ...
at its centre. In 2006, a
gamma-ray burst In gamma-ray astronomy, gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are immensely energetic explosions that have been observed in distant galaxies. They are the most energetic and luminous electromagnetic events since the Big Bang. Bursts can last from ten milli ...
GRB 060729—was observed in Pictor, its extremely long X-ray
afterglow An afterglow in meteorology consists of several atmospheric optical phenomena, with a general definition as a broad arch of whitish or pinkish sunlight in the twilight sky, consisting of the bright segment and the purple light. Purple light mainl ...
detectable for nearly two years.


History

The French astronomer Abbé
Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille Abbé Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille (; 15 March 171321 March 1762), formerly sometimes spelled de la Caille, was a kingdom of France, French astronomer and geodesist who named 14 out of the IAU designated constellations, 88 constellations. From 1750 ...
first described Pictor as '' le Chevalet et la Palette'' (the easel and palette) in 1756, after observing and cataloguing 10,000 southern stars during a two-year stay at the
Cape of Good Hope The Cape of Good Hope ( af, Kaap die Goeie Hoop ) ;''Kaap'' in isolation: pt, Cabo da Boa Esperança is a rocky headland on the Atlantic coast of the Cape Peninsula in South Africa. A common misconception is that the Cape of Good Hope is t ...
. He devised 14 new constellations in uncharted regions of the
Southern Celestial Hemisphere The southern celestial hemisphere, also called the Southern Sky, is the southern half of the celestial sphere; that is, it lies south of the celestial equator. This arbitrary sphere, on which seemingly fixed stars form constellations, appears ...
not visible from Europe. All but one honored instruments that symbolised the
Age of Enlightenment The Age of Enlightenment or the Enlightenment; german: Aufklärung, "Enlightenment"; it, L'Illuminismo, "Enlightenment"; pl, Oświecenie, "Enlightenment"; pt, Iluminismo, "Enlightenment"; es, La Ilustración, "Enlightenment" was an intel ...
. He gave these constellations
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. ...
s, including ten stars in Pictor now named Alpha to Nu Pictoris. He labelled the constellation Equuleus Pictorius on his 1763 chart, the word "Equuleus" meaning small horse, or easel—perhaps from an old custom among artists of carrying a canvas on a donkey. The German astronomer Johann Bode called it Pluteum Pictoris. The name was shortened to its current form in 1845 by the English astronomer
Francis Baily Francis Baily (28 April 177430 August 1844) was an English astronomer. He is most famous for his observations of "Baily's beads" during a total eclipse of the Sun. Baily was also a major figure in the early history of the Royal Astronomical S ...
on the suggestion of his countryman Sir
John Herschel Sir John Frederick William Herschel, 1st Baronet (; 7 March 1792 – 11 May 1871) was an English polymath active as a mathematician, astronomer, chemist, inventor, experimental photographer who invented the blueprint and did botanical wor ...
.


Characteristics

Pictor is a small constellation bordered by
Columba Columba or Colmcille; gd, Calum Cille; gv, Colum Keeilley; non, Kolban or at least partly reinterpreted as (7 December 521 – 9 June 597 AD) was an Irish abbot and missionary evangelist credited with spreading Christianity in what is toda ...
to the north,
Puppis Puppis is a constellation in the southern sky. Puppis, the Latin translation of "poop deck", was originally part of an over-large constellation Argo Navis (the ship of Jason and the Argonauts), which centuries after its initial description, was ...
and
Carina Carina may refer to: Places Australia * Carina, Queensland, a suburb in Brisbane * Carina Heights, Queensland, a suburb in Brisbane * Carina, Victoria, a locality in Mildura Serbia * Carina, Osečina, a village in the Kolubara District ...
to the east,
Caelum Caelum is a faint constellation in the southern sky, introduced in the 1750s by Nicolas Louis de Lacaille and counted among the 88 modern constellations. Its name means “'' chisel''” in Latin, and it was formerly known as Caelum Sculptoriu ...
to the northwest,
Dorado Dorado () is a constellation in the southern sky. It was named in the late 16th century and is now one of the 88 modern constellations. Its name refers to the dolphinfish (''Coryphaena hippurus''), which is known as ''dorado'' in Spanish, altho ...
to the southwest and
Volans Volans is a constellation in the southern sky. It represents a flying fish; its name is a shortened form of its original name, Piscis Volans. Volans was one of twelve constellations created by Petrus Plancius from the observations of Pieter Dirks ...
to the south. The three-letter abbreviation for the constellation, as adopted by 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 ...
in 1922, is "Pic". The official constellation boundaries, as set by Belgian astronomer
Eugène Delporte Eugene is a common male given name that comes from the Greek εὐγενής (''eugenēs''), "noble", literally "well-born", from εὖ (''eu''), "well" and γένος (''genos''), "race, stock, kin".equatorial coordinate system The equatorial coordinate system is a celestial coordinate system widely used to specify the positions of celestial objects. It may be implemented in spherical or rectangular coordinates, both defined by an origin at the centre of Earth, a fund ...
, the
right ascension Right ascension (abbreviated RA; symbol ) is the angular distance of a particular point measured eastward along the celestial equator from the Sun at the March equinox to the (hour circle of the) point in question above the earth. When paired w ...
coordinates of these borders lie between and , while the
declination In astronomy, declination (abbreviated dec; symbol ''δ'') is one of the two angles that locate a point on the celestial sphere in the equatorial coordinate system, the other being hour angle. Declination's angle is measured north or south of the ...
coordinates are between −42.79° and −64.15°. Pictor culminates each year at 9 p.m. on 17 March. Its position in the far Southern Celestial Hemisphere means that the whole constellation is visible to observers south of latitude 26°N, and parts become
circumpolar Circumpolar may refer to: * Antarctic region ** Antarctic Circle ** the Antarctic Circumpolar Current ** Subantarctic ** List of Antarctic and subantarctic islands ** Antarctic Convergence ** Antarctic Circumpolar Wave ** Antarctic Ocean * Arctic ...
south of latitude 35°S.


Features


Stars

Pictor is a faint constellation; its three brightest stars can be seen near the prominent
Canopus Canopus is the brightest star in the southern constellation of Carina (constellation), Carina and the list of brightest stars, second-brightest star in the night sky. It is also Bayer designation, designated α Carinae, which is Lat ...
. Within the constellation's borders, there are 49 stars brighter than or equal to
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 li ...
6.5. Located about 97 
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 away from Earth,
Alpha Pictoris Alpha Pictoris (α Pic, α Pictoris) is the brightest star in the southern constellation of Pictor. It has an apparent visual magnitude of 3.27, which is bright enough to be Bortle Dark-Sky Scale, viewed from urban areas in the southern ...
is the brightest star in the constellation; it is a white main-sequence star with an apparent magnitude of 3.3, 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 ...
A8VnkA6. A rapidly spinning star with a
projected rotational velocity Stellar rotation is the angular motion of a star about its axis. The rate of rotation can be measured from the spectrum of the star, or by timing the movements of active features on the surface. The rotation of a star produces an equatorial bulge ...
estimated at 206 km/s, it has a shell of circumstellar gas. Beta Pictoris is another white main sequence star of spectral type A6V and apparent magnitude 3.86. Located around 63.4 light-years distant from Earth, it is a member of the
Beta Pictoris moving group The Beta Pictoris Moving Group is a young moving group of stars located relatively near Earth. A moving group, in astronomy, is a group of stars that share a common motion through space as well as a common origin. This moving group is named for B ...
—a group of 17 star systems around 12 million years old moving through space together. In 1984 Beta Pictoris was the first star discovered to have a
debris disk A debris disk (American English), or debris disc (Commonwealth English), is a circumstellar disk of dust and debris in orbit around a star. Sometimes these disks contain prominent rings, as seen in the image of Fomalhaut on the right. Debris dis ...
. Since then, an
exoplanet An exoplanet or extrasolar planet is a planet outside the Solar System. The first possible evidence of an exoplanet was noted in 1917 but was not recognized as such. The first confirmation of detection occurred in 1992. A different planet, init ...
about eight times the mass of Jupiter has been discovered orbiting approximately 8 
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 ...
s (AU) away from the star—a similar distance as that between our Sun and Saturn. The
European Southern Observatory The European Organisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere, commonly referred to as the European Southern Observatory (ESO), is an intergovernmental organization, intergovernmental research organisation made up of 16 mem ...
(ESO) confirmed its presence through the use of direct imagery with the
Very Large Telescope 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, ...
in late 2009.; . Gamma Pictoris is an
orange giant A giant star is a star with substantially larger radius and luminosity than a main-sequence (or ''dwarf'') star of the same surface temperature.Giant star, entry in ''Astronomy Encyclopedia'', ed. Patrick Moore, New York: Oxford University Press ...
of spectral type K1III that has swollen to 1.4 times the diameter of the Sun. Shining with an apparent magnitude of 4.5, it lies 174 light-years distant from Earth.
HD 42540 HD 42540, also known as HR 2196, is a giant star in the constellation Pictor. A class K2-3III orange giant, its apparent magnitude is 5.04 and it is approximately 389 light years away based on parallax. This star was mistakenly catalogue ...
, called 47 Pictoris by American astronomer
Benjamin Apthorp Gould Benjamin Apthorp Gould (September 27, 1824 – November 26, 1896) was a pioneering American astronomer. He is noted for creating the ''Astronomical Journal'', discovering the Gould Belt, and for founding of the Argentine National Observatory and ...
, is a slightly cooler orange giant, with a spectral type of K2.5III and average magnitude 5.04. It has also been suspected of being a
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 ...
. Lacaille mistakenly named this star Mu Doradus, but had recorded its Right Ascension one hour too low. Lacaille named two neighbouring stars Eta Pictoris. Eta2 Pictoris, also known as HR 1663, is an orange giant of spectral type K5III and apparent magnitude 5.05. 474 light-years distant, it has a diameter 5.6 times that of the Sun. Eta1 Pictoris, also known as HR 1649, is 85 light-years distant and is a main sequence star of spectral type F5V and visual magnitude 5.38. A double star, it has a companion of magnitude 13; the two are separated by 11 arcseconds. Located about 1298 light-years from Earth,
Delta Pictoris Delta Pictoris, Latinized from δ Pictoris, is a binary star system in the southern constellation Pictor. It is visible to the naked with a combined apparent visual magnitude of 4.72. The system is located at a distance of approximate ...
is an
eclipsing binary 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 w ...
of the
Beta Lyrae Beta Lyrae (β Lyrae, abbreviated Beta Lyr, β Lyr) officially named Sheliak (Arabic: الشلياق, Romanization: ash-Shiliyāq) ( IPA: ), the traditional name of the system, is a multiple star system in the constellation of Lyra. Ba ...
type. Composed of two blue stars of spectral types B3III and O9V, the system has a period of 1.67 days, and is observed to dip from apparent magnitude 4.65 to 4.9. The stars are oval-shaped as they are gravitationally distorted by each other. TV Pictoris is a
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 ...
system composed of an A-type star and an F-type star which rotate around each other in a very close orbit. The latter star is elliptical in shape and itself varies in brightness. The visual magnitude ranges between 7.37 and 7.53 every 20 hours. Aside from Beta, five other stars in Pictor are known to host planetary systems.
AB Pictoris AB Pictoris (abbreviated AB Pic, also catalogued as HD 44627) is a K-type star, approximately 163 light-years away in the constellation of Pictor. It has been identified as a member of the young (30 million years old) Tucana–Horol ...
is a
BY Draconis variable BY Draconis variables are variable stars of late spectral types, usually K or M, and typically belong to the main sequence. The name comes from the archetype for this category of variable star system, BY Draconis. They exhibit variations in thei ...
star with a substellar companion that is either a large planet or a
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 ...
, which was discovered by direct imaging in 2005.
HD 40307 HD 40307 is an orange ( K-type) main-sequence star located approximately 42 light-years away in the constellation of Pictor (the Easel), taking its primary name from its Henry Draper Catalogue designation. It is calculated to be sligh ...
is an orange main sequence star of spectral type K2.5V and apparent magnitude 7.17 located about 42 light-years away.
Doppler spectroscopy Doppler spectroscopy (also known as the radial-velocity method, or colloquially, the wobble method) is an indirect method for finding extrasolar planets and brown dwarfs from radial-velocity measurements via observation of Doppler shifts in t ...
with the
High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher The High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher (HARPS) is a high-precision echelle planet-finding spectrograph installed in 2002 on the ESO's 3.6m telescope at La Silla Observatory in Chile. The first light was achieved in February 2003. ...
(HARPS) indicates that HD 40307 is host to six
super-Earth A super-Earth is an extrasolar planet with a mass higher than Earth's, but substantially below those of the Solar System's ice giants, Uranus and Neptune, which are 14.5 and 17 times Earth's, respectively. The term "super-Earth" refers only to ...
planets, one of which,
HD 40307 g HD 40307 g is an exoplanet candidate suspected to be orbiting in the habitable zone of HD 40307. It is located 42 light-years away in the direction of the southern constellation Pictor. The planet was discovered by the radial velocity method, ...
, lies in the
circumstellar habitable zone In astronomy and astrobiology, the circumstellar habitable zone (CHZ), or simply the habitable zone, is the range of orbits around a star within which a planetary surface can support liquid water given sufficient atmospheric pressure.J. F. Kas ...
of the star, and is not close enough to be
tidally locked Tidal locking between a pair of co-orbiting astronomical body, astronomical bodies occurs when one of the objects reaches a state where there is no longer any net change in its rotation rate over the course of a complete orbit. In the case where ...
(i.e. with the same face always facing the star), unlike the other planets in the same system, and many other planets which orbit close to their parent stars.
HD 41004 HD 41004 is a visual binary star system in the southern constellation of Pictor. It is too faint to be visible to the naked eye, having a combined apparent visual magnitude of 8.65. The two components have a magnitude difference of 3.7, ...
is a complex binary system about 139 light-years distant. The primary is an orange dwarf of spectral type K1V orbited by a planet roughly 2.65 times the mass of Jupiter every 963 days, while the secondary is a red dwarf of spectral type M2V and orbited by a brown dwarf that is at least 19 times as massive as Jupiter. Both substellar components were discovered by doppler spectroscopy using the
CORALIE spectrograph Leonhard Euler Telescope, or the Swiss EULER Telescope, is a national, fully automatic reflecting telescope, built and operated by the Geneva Observatory. It is located at an altitude of at ESO's La Silla Observatory site in the Chilean Norte ...
in 2004 and 2002 respectively.
Kapteyn's Star Kapteyn's Star is a class M1 red subdwarf about 12.83 light-years from Earth in the southern constellation Pictor; it is the closest halo star to the Solar System. With a magnitude of nearly 9 it is visible through binoculars or a te ...
, a nearby
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 ...
at the distance of 12.78 light-years, has a magnitude of 8.8. It has the largest
proper motion Proper motion is the astrometric measure of the observed changes in the apparent places of stars or other celestial objects in the sky, as seen from the center of mass of the Solar System, compared to the abstract background of the more dista ...
of any star in the sky after
Barnard's Star Barnard's Star is a red dwarf about six light-years from Earth in the constellation of Ophiuchus. It is the fourth-nearest-known individual star to the Sun after the three components of the Alpha Centauri system, and the closest star in the ...
. Moving around the Milky Way in the opposite direction to most other stars, it may have originated in a dwarf galaxy that was merged into the
Milky Way The Milky Way is the galaxy that includes our Solar System, with the name describing the galaxy's appearance from Earth: a hazy band of light seen in the night sky formed from stars that cannot be individually distinguished by the naked eye ...
, with the main remnant being the
Omega Centauri Omega Centauri (ω Cen, NGC 5139, or Caldwell 80) is a globular cluster in the constellation of Centaurus that was first identified as a non-stellar object by Edmond Halley in 1677. Located at a distance of , it is the largest-known globular c ...
globular cluster. In 2014 analysis of the doppler variations of Kapteyn's Star with the HARPS spectrograph showed that it hosts two super-Earths— Kapteyn b and Kapteyn c. Kapteyn b is the oldest-known potentially
habitable planet Planetary habitability is the measure of a planet's or a natural satellite's potential to develop and maintain environments hospitable to life. Life may be generated directly on a planet or satellite endogenously or be transferred to it from a ...
, estimated to be possibly 11 billion years old. Located 1.5 degrees west southwest of Alpha,
RR Pictoris RR Pictoris, also known as Nova Pictoris 1925, is a cataclysmic variable star system that flared up as a nova that lit up in the constellation Pictor in 1925. It was discovered by South African amateur astronomer R. Watson who lived in ...
is a
cataclysmic variable In astronomy, cataclysmic variable stars (CVs) are stars which irregularly increase in brightness by a large factor, then drop back down to a quiescent state. They were initially called novae (), since ones with an outburst brightness visible to ...
that flared up as a
nova A nova (plural novae or novas) is a transient astronomical event that causes the sudden appearance of a bright, apparently "new" star (hence the name "nova", which is Latin for "new") that slowly fades over weeks or months. Causes of the dramati ...
, reaching magnitude 1.2 on 9 June 1925. Six months after its peak brightness, it had faded to be invisible to the unaided eye, and was magnitude 12.5 by 1975.
RR Pictoris RR Pictoris, also known as Nova Pictoris 1925, is a cataclysmic variable star system that flared up as a nova that lit up in the constellation Pictor in 1925. It was discovered by South African amateur astronomer R. Watson who lived in ...
is a close binary system composed of 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 ...
and secondary star that orbit each other every 3.48 hours—so close that the secondary is filling up its
Roche lobe In astronomy, the Roche lobe is the region around a star in a binary system within which orbiting material is gravitationally bound to that star. It is an approximately teardrop-shaped region bounded by a critical gravitational equipotential, wit ...
with stellar material, which is then transferred onto the first star's
accretion disk An accretion disk is a structure (often a circumstellar disk) formed by diffuse material in orbital motion around a massive central body. The central body is typically a star. Friction, uneven irradiance, magnetohydrodynamic effects, and other fo ...
. Once this material reaches a critical mass, it ignites and the system brightens tremendously. Calculations from the orbital speed suggest the secondary star is not dense enough for its size to still be on the
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 Her ...
, so it also must have begun expanding and cooling already after its core ran out of hydrogen fuel. The RR Pictoris system is estimated to lie around 1300 light-years distant from Earth.


Deep-sky objects

NGC 1705 NGC 1705 is a peculiar lenticular galaxy and a blue compact dwarf galaxy (BCD) in the southern constellation of Pictor, positioned less than a degree to the east of Iota Pictoris, and is undergoing a starburst. With an apparent visual magnit ...
is an irregular dwarf galaxy 17 million light-years from Earth. It is one of the most active star forming galaxies in the nearby universe, despite the fact that its rate of star formation peaked around 30 million years ago.
Pictor A Pictor A, around 485 million light-years away in the constellation Pictor, is a double-lobed broad-line radio galaxy and a powerful source of radio waves in the Southern Celestial Hemisphere. From a supermassive black hole at its centre, a relati ...
, around 485 million light-years away, is a double-lobed
radio galaxy A radio galaxy is a galaxy with giant regions of radio emission extending well beyond its visible structure. These energetic radio lobes are powered by jets from its active galactic nucleus. They have luminosities up to 1039  W at radio wa ...
and a powerful source of
radio wave Radio waves are a type of electromagnetic radiation with the longest wavelengths in the electromagnetic spectrum, typically with frequencies of 300 gigahertz (GHz) and below. At 300 GHz, the corresponding wavelength is 1 mm (short ...
s in the Southern Celestial Hemisphere. From a
supermassive black hole A supermassive black hole (SMBH or sometimes SBH) is the largest type of black hole, with its mass being on the order of hundreds of thousands, or millions to billions of times the mass of the Sun (). Black holes are a class of astronomical obj ...
at its centre, a
relativistic jet An astrophysical jet is an astronomical phenomenon where outflows of ionised matter are emitted as an extended beam along the axis of rotation. When this greatly accelerated matter in the beam approaches the speed of light, astrophysical jets bec ...
shoots out to an X-ray hot spot 800,000 light years away.
SPT-CL J0546-5345 SPT-CL J0546-5345 is one of the most massive galaxy clusters ever found in the early universe. It is thought to be 7 billion light years away. It was discovered at the South Pole Telescope in 2008 by the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich-Effect. The cl ...
is a massive
galaxy cluster A galaxy cluster, or a cluster of galaxies, is a structure that consists of anywhere from hundreds to thousands of galaxies that are bound together by gravity, with typical masses ranging from 1014 to 1015 solar masses. They are the second-l ...
located around 7 billion light-years away with a mass equivalent to approximately 800 trillion suns. GRB 060729 was a
gamma-ray burst In gamma-ray astronomy, gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are immensely energetic explosions that have been observed in distant galaxies. They are the most energetic and luminous electromagnetic events since the Big Bang. Bursts can last from ten milli ...
that was first observed on 29 July 2006. It is likely the signal of a
type Ic supernova Type Ib and Type Ic supernovae are categories of supernovae that are caused by the stellar core collapse of massive stars. These stars have shed or been stripped of their outer envelope of hydrogen, and, when compared to the spectrum ...
—the core collapse of a massive star. It was also notable for its extraordinarily long X-ray
afterglow An afterglow in meteorology consists of several atmospheric optical phenomena, with a general definition as a broad arch of whitish or pinkish sunlight in the twilight sky, consisting of the bright segment and the purple light. Purple light mainl ...
, detectable 642 days (nearly two years) after the original event. The event was remote, with a
redshift In physics, a redshift is an increase in the wavelength, and corresponding decrease in the frequency and photon energy, of electromagnetic radiation (such as light). The opposite change, a decrease in wavelength and simultaneous increase in f ...
of 0.54.


See also

*
Pictor (Chinese astronomy) The modern constellation Pictor (constellation), Pictor lies across one of the quadrants symbolized by the Vermilion Bird (Chinese constellation), Vermillion Bird of the South (南方朱雀, ''Nán Fāng Zhū Què'') and Chinese constellations#The S ...


Notes


References

Citations Sources * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Online sources * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *


External links


The clickable Pictor
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Pictor Southern constellations Constellations listed by Lacaille