Gamma Pictoris, Latinised from γ Pictoris, is a single, orange-hued star in the southern constellation of

Pictor Pictor is a constellation in the Southern Celestial Hemisphere, located between the star Canopus and the Large Magellanic Cloud. Its name is Latin for painter, and is an abbreviation of the older name Equuleus Pictoris (the "painter's easel ...

. It is a faintly 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 4.50. Based upon an annual parallax shift of 18.45 mas as seen from Earth, this star is located about 177 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 ...

. It is moving away from the Sun with a radial velocity of +15.7 km/s. This 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 ...

K-type

giant star 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 ...

with a stellar classification of K1 III. It has 1.59 times the mass of the Sun, while its diameter has been estimated as around 11 times that of the Sun. The star is radiating 61 times the

Sun's 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 enlarged photosphere at an effective temperature of around .

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gamma Pictoris K-type giants Pictor Pictoris, Gamma Durchmusterung objects 039523 027530 2042