triple star
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 speaking, ...
system in the Serpens Cauda (tail) section of the 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 ...
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 ( ...
as seen from Earth, it is located 105.3
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 star system is visible to the naked eye with a base apparent visual magnitude of +3.54. It is moving closer to the Sun and will make perihelion passage at a distance of in around 690,000 years.
The inner pair form a single-lined
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 ...
with an orbital period of 2.29 days following a circular orbit with an eccentricity of 0.00. The primary, component Aa, has a visual magnitude of 3.54. It is a white-hued G-typegiant 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 . This indicates it is a
chemically peculiar
In astrophysics, chemically peculiar stars (CP stars) are stars with distinctly unusual metal abundances, at least in their surface layers.
Classification
Chemically peculiar stars are common among hot main-sequence (hydrogen-burning) stars. Thes ...
Ap star with an abnormal abundance of strontium. The primary has around double 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 ...
, while its close companion, component Ab, has only 18% of the Sun's mass.
The third member, component B, is a magnitude 13.0common proper motion companion. As of 2012, it was located at 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 24 arc seconds along a position angle of 78° from the inner pair. It has about 27% of the Sun's mass and an estimated orbital period of 14,763 years.
112 Herculis
112 Herculis is a binary star system in the northern constellation of Hercules. It is dimly visible to the naked eye with a combined apparent visual magnitude of 5.43. The secondary component is about two magnitudes fainter than the prim ...