Observation data Epoch J2000 Equinox J2000 | |
---|---|
Constellation | Pictor |
Right ascension | 05h 11m 40.58984s [1] |
Declination | −45° 01′ 06.3617″ [1] |
Apparent magnitude (V) | 8.853±0.008 [2] |
Characteristics | |
Spectral type | sdM1 [3] or M1.5V [2] [4] |
U−B color index | +1.21 [5] |
B−V color index | 1.57±0.012 [2] |
Variable type | BY Dra [6] |
Astrometry | |
Radial velocity (Rv) | 245.05±0.13 [1] km/s |
Proper motion (μ) | RA: +6,491.223 mas/yr [1] Dec.: −5,708.614 mas/yr [1] |
Parallax (π) | 254.1986 ± 0.0168 mas [1] |
Distance | 12.8308 ± 0.0008 ly (3.9339 ± 0.0003 pc) |
Absolute magnitude (MV) | 10.89 [3] |
Details [2] | |
Mass | 0.281±0.014 M☉ |
Radius | 0.291±0.025 R☉ |
Luminosity | 0.012 L☉ |
Surface gravity (log g) | 4.96±0.13 cgs |
Temperature | 3,570±80 K |
Metallicity [Fe/H] | −0.86±0.05 dex |
Rotation | 124.71±0.19 d [7] |
Rotational velocity (v sin i) | ~0.2 km/s |
Age | 11.5+0.5 −1.5 Gyr |
Other designations | |
Database references | |
SIMBAD | The star |
planet b | |
planet c |
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 an apparent magnitude of nearly 9, it is visible through binoculars or a telescope. [8]
Its diameter is 30% of the Sun's, but its luminosity just 1.2% that of the Sun. It may have once been part of the globular cluster Omega Centauri, itself the likely core of a dwarf galaxy swallowed up by the Milky Way in the distant past. The discovery of two planets—Kapteyn b and Kapteyn c—was announced in 2014, [9] but had a mixed history of rejections and confirmations, until a 2021 study refuted both planets. The "planets" are in fact artifacts of the star's rotation and activity. [7]
Attention was first drawn to what is now known as Kapteyn's Star by the Dutch astronomer Jacobus Kapteyn in 1898. [10] Under the name CPD-44 612 it was included in the Cape photographic Durchmusterung for the equinox 1875 (−38 to −52) by David Gill and Jacobus Cornelius Kapteyn in 1897. [11] This catalogue was based on Gill's observations from the Cape Observatory in 1885–1889 and was created in collaboration with Kapteyn. While he was reviewing star charts and photographic plates, Kapteyn noted that a star, previously catalogued in 1873 by B. A. Gould as C.Z. V 243, [12] seemed to be missing. However, Robert T. A. Innes found an uncatalogued star about 15 arcseconds away from the absent star's position. It became clear that the star had a very high proper motion of more than 8 arcseconds per year and had moved significantly. Later, CPD-44 612 came to be referred to as Kapteyn's Star [13] although equal credit should be accorded to Robert Innes. [14] At the time of its discovery it had the highest proper motion of any star known, dethroning Groombridge 1830. In 1916, Barnard's Star was found to have an even larger proper motion. [13] [15] [16] In 2014, two super-Earth planet candidates in orbit around the star were announced, [9] but later refuted. [7]
Based upon parallax measurements, Kapteyn's Star is 12.83 light-years (3.93 parsecs ) from the Earth. [1] It came within 7.0 ly (2.1 pc) of the Sun about 10,900 years ago and has been moving away since that time. [17] Kapteyn's Star is distinctive in a number of regards: it has a high radial velocity, [13] orbits the Milky Way retrograde, [16] and is the nearest-known halo star to the Sun. [18] It is a member of a moving group of stars that share a common trajectory through space, named the Kapteyn moving group. [19] Based upon their element abundances, these stars may once have been members of Omega Centauri, a globular cluster that is thought to be the remnant of a dwarf galaxy that merged with the Milky Way. During this process, the stars in the group, including Kapteyn's Star, may have been stripped away as tidal debris. [16] [20] [21]
Kapteyn's Star is between one quarter and one third the size and mass of the Sun and has a much cooler effective temperature at about 3500 K, with some disagreement in the exact measurements between different observers. [16] The stellar classification is sdM1, [3] which indicates that it is a subdwarf with a luminosity lower than that of a main-sequence star at the same spectral type of M1. The abundance of elements other than hydrogen and helium, what astronomers term the metallicity, is about 14% of the abundance in the Sun. [22] [23] It is a variable star of the BY Draconis type with the identifier VZ Pictoris. This means that the luminosity of the star changes because of magnetic activity in the chromosphere coupled with rotation moving the resulting star spots into and out of the line of sight with respect to the Earth. [6]
The star has a mass of 0.27 M☉, a radius of 0.29 R☉ and has about 1.2% of the Sun's luminosity. It has a surface temperature of 3,550 K and is roughly 11 billion years old. [9] In comparison, the Sun is about 4.6 billion years old [24] and has a surface temperature of 5,778 K. [25] Stars like Kapteyn's Star have the ability to live up to 100–200 billion years, ten to twenty times longer than the Sun will live. [26]
In 2014, Kapteyn's Star was announced to host two planets, Kapteyn b and Kapteyn c, based on Doppler spectroscopy observations by the HARPS spectrometer which is housed at the European Southern Observatory's La Silla Observatory in Chile, at the Keck Observatory in Hawaii, and at the PFS Observatory, also in Chile. [27] Kapteyn b was described as the oldest-known potentially habitable planet, estimated to be 11 billion years old, [9] while Kapteyn c was described as beyond the host star's habitable zone. [28] [29] [9]
Kapteyn b was thought to make a complete orbit around its parent star about every 48.62 days at a distance of 0.17 AU, with an eccentricity of 0.21, meaning its orbit is mildly elliptical. Kapteyn c was thought to orbit with a period of 121.5 days at a distance of 0.31 AU, with an eccentricity of 0.23. Both planets were thought to be super-Earths, with minimum masses of 4.8 and 7.0 ME, respectively. [9]
The purported planets were thought to be close to a 5:2 period commensurability, but resonances could not be confirmed. Dynamical integration of the orbits suggested [9] that the pair of planets are in a dynamical state called apsidal co-rotation, which usually implies that the system is dynamically stable over long time scales. [30] Guinan et al. (2016) suggested that the present day star could potentially support life on Kapteyn b, but that the planet's atmosphere may have been stripped away when the star was young (~0.5 Gyr) and highly active. [2] The announcement of the planetary system was accompanied by a science-fiction short-story, "Sad Kapteyn", written by writer Alastair Reynolds. [31]
However, subsequent research by Robertson et al. (2015) found that the orbital period of Kapteyn b is an integer fraction (1/3) of their estimated stellar rotation period, and thus the planetary signal is most likely an artifact of stellar activity. The authors did not rule out the existence of Kapteyn c, calling for further observation. [32] This refutation was questioned by the team that published the exoplanet discovery paper. [33] Guinan et al. (2016) (as well as earlier authors) found a lower value for the stellar rotation, which lended support to the original planetary finding. [2]
In 2021, a new analysis found no evidence for either planet, and found that the observed radial velocity signals are in fact artifacts of the star's rotation and activity, after the rotational period of the star was refined, with a rotational period very similar to that of candidate c. [7] There is currently no evidence for planets orbiting Kapteyn's Star.
70 Virginis is a binary star located 59 light years from the Sun in the equatorial constellation of Virgo, near the northern constellation border with Coma Berenices. 70 Virginis is its Flamsteed designation. The star is visible to the naked eye as a faint, yellow-hued point of light with an apparent visual magnitude of +4.97. It is drifting further away with a heliocentric radial velocity of +4.4 km/s and has a high proper motion, traversing the celestial sphere at the rate of 0.621 arc seconds per annum.
Wolf 359 is a red dwarf star located in the constellation Leo, near the ecliptic. At a distance of 7.86 light-years from Earth, it has an apparent magnitude of 13.54 and can only be seen with a large telescope. Wolf 359 is one of the nearest stars to the Sun with only the Alpha Centauri system, Barnard's Star, and the brown dwarfs Luhman 16 and WISE 0855−0714 known to be closer. Its proximity to Earth has led to its mention in several works of fiction.
Ross 128 is a red dwarf star in the equatorial zodiac constellation of Virgo, near β Virginis. The apparent magnitude of Ross 128 is 11.13, which is too faint to be seen with the unaided eye. Based upon parallax measurements, the distance of this star from Earth is 11.007 light-years, making it the twelfth closest stellar system to the Solar System. It was first cataloged in 1926 by American astronomer Frank Elmore Ross.
82 G. Eridani is a star 19.7 light-years away from Earth in the constellation Eridanus. It is a main-sequence star with a stellar classification of G6 V, and it hosts a system of at least three planets and a dust disk.
54 Piscium is an orange dwarf star approximately 36 light-years away in the constellation of Pisces. In 2003, an extrasolar planet was confirmed to be orbiting the star, and in 2006, a brown dwarf was also discovered orbiting it.
Rho Coronae Borealis is a yellow dwarf star 57.1 light-years away in the constellation of Corona Borealis. The star is thought to be similar to the Sun with nearly the same mass, radius, and luminosity. It is orbited by four known exoplanets.
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HD 108874 is a star with a pair of orbiting exoplanets in the northern constellation of Coma Berenices. It is located 194.5 light years from the Sun based on parallax measurements, but is drifting closer with a radial velocity of −30 km/s. The absolute magnitude of this star is 4.79, but at that distance the star has an apparent visual magnitude of 8.76, making it too faint to be visible to the naked eye. HD 108874 has a relatively large proper motion, traversing the celestial sphere at an angular rate of 0.157″ yr−1.
Gamma Delphini, which is Latinized from γ Delphini, is a wide binary star system in the northern constellation of Delphinus. The star marks one corner of the asterism "Job's Coffin". The pair can be split with a modest amateur telescope and have been described as "one of the prettier pairs in the sky", with their contrasting colors said to be orange and lime in appearance. Together, the system is visible to the naked eye with a combined apparent visual magnitude of 3.87.
Gliese 667 is a triple-star system in the constellation Scorpius lying at a distance of about 7.2 parsecs from Earth. All three of the stars have masses smaller than the Sun. There is a 12th-magnitude star close to the other three, but it is not gravitationally bound to the system. To the naked eye, the system appears to be a single faint star of magnitude 5.89.
AD Leonis (Gliese 388) is a red dwarf star. It is located relatively near the Sun, at a distance of 16.2 light-years, in the constellation Leo. AD Leonis is a main sequence star with a spectral classification of M3.5V. It is a flare star that undergoes random increases in luminosity.
Theta Cygni is a star in the northern constellation of Cygnus. It has an apparent visual magnitude of 4.5, so it can be seen with the naked eye in sufficiently dark skies. Based upon parallax measurements, it is at a distance of about 59.8 light-years from the Earth. It is suspected of hosting an extrasolar planet.
Gliese 412 is a pair of stars that share a common proper motion through space and are thought to form a binary star system. The pair have an angular separation of 31.4″ at a position angle of 126.1°. They are located 15.8 light-years distant from the Sun in the constellation Ursa Major. Both components are relatively dim red dwarf stars.
HD 222582 is a multiple star system in the equatorial constellation of Aquarius. It is invisible to the naked eye with an apparent visual magnitude of 7.7, but can be viewed with binoculars or a small telescope. The system is located at a distance of 137 light years from the Sun based on parallax, and it is drifting further away with a radial velocity of +12 km/s. It is located close enough to the ecliptic that it is subject to lunar occultations.
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Gliese 163 is a faint red dwarf star with multiple exoplanetary companions in the southern constellation of Dorado. Other stellar catalog names for it include HIP 19394 and LHS 188. It is too faint to be visible to the naked eye, having an apparent visual magnitude of 11.79 and an absolute magnitude of 10.91. This system is located at a distance of 49.4 light-years from the Sun based on parallax measurements. Judging by its space velocity components, it is most likely a thick disk star.
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