ι Pictoris, Latinized from Iota Pictoris, is a suspected multiple star system in the southern

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 ...

constellation. It is visible to the naked eye as a dim, yellow-white-hued point of light with a combined

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 5.28. The two resolvable components have an angular separation of , equivalent to a physical

projected separation 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 ...

of around . They are located at a distance of around 127–131 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 ...

, based on parallax. The two visible components appear as

F-type main-sequence star An F-type main-sequence star (F V) is a main-sequence, hydrogen-fusing star of spectral type F and luminosity class V. These stars have from 1.0 to 1.4 times the mass of the Sun and surface temperatures between 6,000 and 7,600 K.Tables VII ...

s: the magnitude 5.63 component A has a stellar classification of F0 V, while the cooler, fainter secondary is of class F4 V. Both are themselves are suspected spectroscopic binary stars consisting of roughly equal components. Component B actually has a higher estimated mass than Component A, although the radius of B is smaller. They are both more luminous than the Sun, and have an estimated age of around 500–600 million years.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Iota Pictoris F-type main-sequence stars Binary stars Spectroscopic binaries Pictor Pictoris, Iota Durchmusterung objects 31203 4 022531 4 1563 4