Upsilon Ceti, Latinized from υ Ceti, is a solitary

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 ...

in the

equatorial Equatorial may refer to something related to: *Earth's equator **the tropics, the Earth's equatorial region **tropical climate *the Celestial equator ** equatorial orbit **equatorial coordinate system ** equatorial mount, of telescopes * equatorial ...

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- ...

. It is visible to the naked eye with an

apparent 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 lig ...

of 3.95. Based upon an annual parallax shift of 11.14 mas, it is located about 293 light years 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 ...

. This star was designated Upsilon Ceti by

Bayer Bayer AG (, commonly pronounced ; ) is a German multinational corporation, multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology company and one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world. Headquartered in Leverkusen, Bayer's areas of busi ...

and 59 Ceti by

Flamsteed John Flamsteed (19 August 1646 – 31 December 1719) was an English astronomer and the first Astronomer Royal. His main achievements were the preparation of a 3,000-star catalogue, ''Catalogus Britannicus'', and a star atlas called ''Atlas Coe ...

. Flamsteed also gave it the designation Upsilon² Ceti to distinguish it from 56 Ceti, which he called Upsilon¹. Flamsteed's superscripted designations, however, are not in general use today. For ancient Arabic astronomers, this star with η Cet (Deneb Algenubi), θ Cet (Thanih al Naamat), τ Cet (Durre Menthor) and ζ Cet (Baten Kaitos), formed Al Naʽāmāt (النعامات), the Hen Ostriches In

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...

, (), meaning ''

Sickle A sickle, bagging hook, reaping-hook or grasshook is a single-handed agricultural tool designed with variously curved blades and typically used for harvesting, or reaping, grain crops or cutting Succulent plant, succulent forage chiefly for feed ...

'', refers to an asterism consisting of υ Ceti, 48 Ceti and 56 Ceti. Consequently, the

Chinese name Chinese names or Chinese personal names are names used by individuals from Greater China and other parts of the Chinese-speaking world throughout East and Southeast Asia (ESEA). In addition, many names used in Japan, Korea and Vietnam are often a ...

for υ Ceti itself is (, en, the Fourth Star of Sickle.)AEEA (Activities of Exhibition and Education in Astronomy) 天文教育資訊網 2006 年 7 月 10 日
/ref> Upsilon Ceti is an

evolved Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variation ...

red giant star 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 ...

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 M0III and is listed as a standard for that class. The star has previously been classified as K5/M0III, an interesting example of one of the "gaps" in the Morgan-Keenan classification system, with K6-9 often not used for giant stars or used only to indicate a fraction of the way between K5 and M0. There is an 84% chance that it is on the

red giant branch The red-giant branch (RGB), sometimes called the first giant branch, is the portion of the giant branch before helium ignition occurs in the course of stellar evolution. It is a stage that follows the main sequence for low- to intermediate-mass sta ...

, or 16% to be on the horizontal branch. Stellar models based on the red giant branch status yield an estimated mass of around 126% of the

Sun's 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 of ...

and 54 times the

radius of the Sun Solar radius is a unit of distance used to express the size of stars in astronomy relative to the Sun. The solar radius is usually defined as the radius to the layer in the Sun's photosphere where the optical depth equals 2/3: :1\,R_ = 6.957\t ...

. This model indicates the star radiates around 550 times the

solar luminosity The solar luminosity (), is a unit of radiant flux ( power emitted in the form of photons) conventionally used by astronomers to measure the luminosity of stars, galaxies and other celestial objects in terms of the output of the Sun. One nominal ...

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 3,822 K.

References

External links

* * *http://www.alcyone.de/cgi-bin/search.pl?object=HR0585 *http://server3.wikisky.org/starview?object_type=1&object_id=714 {{DEFAULTSORT:Upsilon Ceti Cetus, Upsilon Asymptotic-giant-branch stars Cetus Cetus, Upsilon BD-21 358 Ceti, 59 012274 009347 0585