Messier 65, image: Adam Block/Mount Lemmon SkyCenter/University of Arizona (CC BY-SA 4.0). Together with the bright Spica in Virgo and Arcturus in Botes, Regulus forms the Spring Triangle, another prominent asterism appearing in the evening sky from March to May. In contrast, our sun spins on its axis about once every 27 days. A line from Megrez through Phecda, the inner stars of the Big Dippers bowl, leads to the Sickle. The G7 class star has a visual magnitude of 3.51, is 50 times brighter than the Sun, and has 10 times the solar diameter. Its traditional name (Regulus) means "the little king". There are two meteor showers associated with the constellation. Lambda Leonis is a K5-class star, about 336 light years from the Sun. Regulus, in a horoscope or predictive chart, signifies good fortune, pride, royalty, and success. The star has an optical companion, 35 Leonis, which has an apparent magnitude of 5.90. 166 Rhodope, an asteroid about 54.6 km in size, occulted the star on October 19, 2005. The stars traditional name, Zosma, comes from ancient Greek and means the girdle. Zosma is located on the lions hip. Regulus and its Leo neighbour Denebola are among the 58 bright stars that have been given a special status in the field of celestial navigation. The constellation name Leo is pronounced /lio/. It has a visual magnitude of 3.856 and is approximately 5,000 light years distant. The Washington Double Star Catalog", Bright Star Regulus near the Leo I Dwarf Galaxy, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Regulus&oldid=1149452547, Articles containing Ancient Greek (to 1453)-language text, Short description is different from Wikidata, Articles with unsourced statements from September 2022, Articles with unsourced statements from August 2018, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 12 April 2023, at 10:00. The stars traditional name, Alterf, comes from the Arabic a-arf, which means the view (of the lion).. They are main sequence stars belonging to the spectral classes K1-2 V and M5 V, making Regulus B an orange dwarf and Regulus C a red dwarf. Its traditional name, Algieba or Al Gieba, comes from the Arabic Al-Jabhah, which means the forehead. The star is sometimes also known by its Latin name, Juba. The spiral arms form an almost perfect circle around the galactic centre before they spread out, creating a mane-like effect of which any lion would be proud. The galaxy was discovered by the French astronomer Pierre Mchain in 1781 and Charles Messier subsequently included it in his catalogue four days later. Regulus B, meanwhile, has its own companion: Regulus C. At magnitude 13.5, its only visible with powerful telescopes. For this reason, it is regularly occulted by the Moon and, rarely, by Mercury and Venus. In 1978, Don was one of the independent inventors of the Messier Marathon, an attempt to find and view all 110 galaxies, clusters, and nebulae in one night. 35 Leonis is located 325.9 arc seconds away from Adhafera and it is only a line-of-sight companion, as it is only 100 light years distant from Earth. [4] The constellations of the royal stars were said to be fixed because their positions were close to the four fixed points of the sun's path. These limelight-hogging celestial objects combine whirling, pinwheeling arms with scatterings of sparkling stars, glowing bursts of gas, and dark, weaving lanes of cosmic dust, creating truly awesome scenes especially when viewed through a telescope such as the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. How are Hubble Space Telescope images made? Draco) or exist in the real world (e.g. The stars Altair and Achernar are also fast spinners with flattened, oblate shapes. The three-letter abbreviation, adopted by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) in 1922, is Leo. It crept higher in the sky with each passing day in March and April, as winter favorites like Orion descended westward. Mu Leonis belongs to the spectral class K3. The Chinese knew Regulus as the Fourteenth Star of Xuanyuan, the Yellow Emperor (). This means that it completes a rotation every 15.9 hours and, as a result, its shape has been distorted into an oblate spheroid, with the equatorial diameter 32 percent larger than the polar diameter. And, every month, the moon passes near Regulus. Regulus, Denebola, the Leo Triplet and the Leo I Group, image: Wikisky. Regulus was seen as the main star because it was in the constellation of Leo, giving it the power of the lion, signifying the strength of kings with large implications. The poles are said to be gravity brightened, while the equator is gravity darkened. The poles of Regulus are five times brighter than the equator. It consists of two pairs of stars. [1] The Persians believed that the sky was divided into four districts with each district being guarded by one of the four Royal Stars. Overall rating. Photo taken Oct. 1, 2013. source of its extremely rapid spin and strange motion, Encyclopedia of Astronomy and Astrophysics, would only need to rotate about 10 percent faster to tear itself to pieces, Star Trek's bad captains: Celebrating Starfleet's less-than-perfect commanding officers, Best free Star Trek: TNG & Picard 3D prints. Regulus A is the brightest star of the system, having around 288 solar luminosities. These are the 22 stars with apparent magnitudes of less than +1.50. It can be located using the stars of the Big Dipper; Megrez and Phecda, the two inner stars of the Dippers bowl, point the way to the asterism. [4] By the time of the Persian Empire (550 BC330 BC), Aldebaran watched the Eastern sky and was the dominant star in the Taurus constellation, Regulus watched the North and was the dominant star in the Leo constellation, Antares watched the West and was the alpha star in Scorpio, and Fomalhaut watched the Southern sky and was the brightest star in Piscis Austrinus (sharing the same longitude with the star Sadalmelik which is the predominant star in Aquarius). Because of its proximity to Earth, the star is often mentioned in works of fiction. Theta Leonis has an estimated age of 550 million years, which means that it is much younger than the Sun. Regulus A is the dominant star, with a binary companion 177" distant that is thought to be physically related. Leonis (Latinized to Alpha Leonis) is the star system's Bayer designation. Regulus appears below the Lions head and shoulders and marks its heart. The two are separated by 0.35 astronomical units and complete an orbit around a common centre of mass every 40.11 days. In about 600 million years, it will become a red giant. Christians in the Middle Ages sometimes referred to it as one of Daniels lions. Stewart, Suzy. According to Bantu Mythology mankind is not indigenous to planet Earth. The galaxy is notable for having a long tidal tail spanning about 300,000 light years, and a broad, obscuring dust band along the outer edge of its spiral arms. The pair lie about 177 arc seconds or 4,200 astronomical units away from Regulus A. Regulus B has an apparent magnitude of 8.13 and Regulus C has an apparent magnitude of 13.50. Regulus appears singular, but is actually a quadruple star system composed of four stars that are organized into two pairs. She was contributing writer for Space.com (opens in new tab) for 10 years before joining full-time, freelancing since 2012. Search local showtimes and buy movie tickets from theaters near you on Moviefone. Photo: ESO. When it is at its brightest, it can be seen without binoculars, and when it is on the dimmest end of the spectrum, one needs at least a 7 cm telescope to see the star. It is the object within the Regulus system that can be seen with the naked eye. This star is part of the Diamond of Virgo, along with Denebola (in Leos tail), Arcturus in Botes and Spica in Virgo. They added, however, that they couldn't see anything in the system that would cause it to move faster. The galaxy is known to have a supermassive black hole at its centre. Except that he did throw his lot in with Voldemort, which doesn't strike us as particularly clever. Regulus D is a 12th magnitude star located at a separation of 212 arcseconds. The 2018 Gaia data release 2 revealed it to be a background object, not physically related to the Regulus system. Your email address will only be used for EarthSky content. M66 and NGC 3628 had an encounter in the past, and the gravitational interaction between the two resulted in an exceptionally high central mass concentration in M66, a high molecular to atomic mass ratio, and a resolved noncorotating clump of H I material being removed from one of M66s spiral arms. It is spinning extremely rapidly, with a rotation period of only 15.9 hours, which causes it to have a highly oblate shape. Alpha Leonis system, image credit: Pablo Carlos Budassi (CC BY-SA 4.0). As a result, it has an oblate shape. The Planets, https://theplanets.org/stars/regulus-star/. With just 1/3 the mass of the sun, Regulus C is a red dwarf star with a spectral classification of M4V. Regulus B and C are gravitationally bound to each other, and together theyre called Regulus BC. Leo is the 12th largest constellation in size, occupying an area of 947 square degrees. It was discovered by the German astronomer Albert Marth on April 5, 1864. He's a longtime member of NASA's Solar System Ambassadors program. The companion star has an apparent magnitude of 4.8. The constellation is home to the Leo Triplet of galaxies, which consists of the galaxies Messier 65, Messier 66, and NGC 3628, the Leo I Group, which includes the spiral galaxies Messier 95 and Messier 96 and the elliptical galaxy Messier 105, and the Cosmic Horseshoe, a gravitationally lensed system of two galaxies located at a distance of 5.2 and 10.3 gigalight years, discovered in 2007. It is now so entered in the IAU Catalog of Star Names. Omicron Leonis is a double star in Leo. The light output is dominated by Regulus A. Regulus B, if seen in isolation, would be a binocular object of magnitude +8.1, and its companion, Regulus C, the faintest of the three stars that has been directly observed, would require a substantial telescope to be seen, at magnitude +13.5. Babylonians called it Sharru ("the King"), and it marked the 15th ecliptic constellation. . The light of the star took 9.34 billion years to reach Earth. It formally applies only to the component Alpha Leonis A, but is informally used for the whole system. So bright planets sometimes pass near Regulus.. The name Regulus is a diminutive form of "rex", which is Latin for "king". The flares from the star emit strong bursts of gamma rays and X-ray radiation. Gamma Leonis is a double star in Leo. Mastodon: https://qoto.org/@howellspace, SpaceX Dragon debris lights up sky in bright fireball over western US during reentry (video), SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket aborts triple satellite launch at last minute. The heliacal rising of Regulus (rising just before the dawn after a period of invisibility) occurs in early September. . Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window), Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window), Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window), Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window), Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window), Click to share on Print & PDF (Opens in new window), Apollo Soranus: the wolf, the sun, and thesacrifice, Aldebaran: the Bulls Eye WE ARE STAR STUFF, Spica: the Wheat Sheaf We Are Star Stuff. The star has an estimated age of less than a billion years. Astronomers had a detailed look at Regulus' motion in a study published in 2005, showing that the star would only need to rotate about 10 percent faster to tear itself to pieces. It is between 390 and 490 light years distant from the Sun. Source: wigwamgolf. Search reviews. Regulus can also sometimes be occulted by asteroids. Located in the southern hemisphere, Centaurus is named for the half man half horse creatures of Greek mythology. The galaxy was discovered by Charles Messier in 1780. M95 belongs to the M96 Group of galaxies, which also includes M96 and M105, and also at least nine other galaxies. Together, the pair have a right ascension of 10h 08m 12.8/14s and a declination of +11 59 48. This system is known as an active galactic nucleus. Regulus is the nearest first-magnitude star to the ecliptic, located only 0.465 degrees north of it. For example, in mid-July 2023, both Venus and Mars will visit Regulus in the evening sky. The stars traditional names, Rasalas (or Ras Elad Borealis) and Alshemali are abbreviated from the Arabic phrase ras al-asad a-aml, which means the northern (star) of the lions head.. The name Regulus means the "little king" or "prince" in Latin. The Planets. The star belongs to the IC 2391 supercluster, a stellar association whose member stars share a common motion through space, but are not gravitationally bound. It is 85 times more luminous than the Sun. NGC 3357 is an elliptical galaxy in Leo. The Persians might have thought otherwise if they knew what astronomers know now: it rotates extremely fast, and doesnt need to go a whole lot faster to tear itself to pieces, and like Uranus its axis is tilted, so that the poles are roughly where the equator should be. Alpha Leonis is the closest bright star to the ecliptic. It is the 22nd brightest star, although the 21st, Alpha Centauri, is not much brighter than it is. The first is a K2V star, while the second is about M4V. The name Regulus means little king or prince in Latin. This article is about the star. The main star in Leo, Regulus, was associated with kings. Your submission has been received! More than 80% of them are Population II stars, more than a billion years old. Greek mythology. It has an estimated age of at least a billion years. Both Eratosthenes and Hyginus wrote that the lion was placed among the constellations because it was the king of beasts. [37][38] It is also known as Qalb al-Asad, from the Arabic , meaning 'the heart of the lion', a name already attested in the Greek Kardia Leontos[37][39] whose Latin equivalent is Cor Lenis. Zosma, Delta Leonis, is another rapid rotator in Leo, with a projected rotational velocity of 180 km/s. [4] When the stars were aligned accordingly, favourable conditions followed, and when they were negatively aligned, disaster was predicted. The constellation Leo was mentioned in the Tetrabiblos, an ancient Roman text by Ptolemy (c. A.D. 100 170). Algieba is composed of a giant star with the spectral classification K1-IIIbCN0.5 and a dimmer companion star which belongs to the spectral class G7IIICN-I. Language links are at the top of the page across from the title. Regulus, also known as Alpha Leonis, is the brightest star in the constellation Leo and the 21st brightest star in the night sky. The two components in the Omicron Leonis system belong to the spectral classes F9III (a giant) and A5mV (a main sequence star). 1.40), Algieba (Gamma Leo, mag. M66 is approximately 95,000 light years across and notable for its dust lanes and bright star clusters. The Planets 2010 - 2023 | Privacy Policy & Affiliate Disclaimer, Copyright 2023 ThePlanets.org | Sitemap, Regulus Star Image https://mirkokosmos.tumblr.com/image/114076419912, Regulus size comp https://www.daviddarling.info/images/flattened_stars.jpg, Location Of Regulus image https://starwalk.space/gallery/images/the-moon-venus-regulus-jpg/1136639. Easily recognizable for the Sickle asterism that outlines the Lions mane and shoulders, Leo is known for its bright stars mainly Regulus and Denebola and a number of bright deep sky objects. With a surface temperature of 11,668 K, it shines with 316.2 solar luminosities. The traditional name Regulus is Latin for ' prince ' or ' little king .'. Regulus A has an average temperature of around 12.460 Kelvin. Regulus is fairly easy to find in the sky as it is part of the Sickle of Leo, a prominent asterism in the constellation Leo, and marks the lower end of the Sickles handle. HD 87884 is separated from Regulus by 176 and is itself a close pair. With an effective temperature of 4,885 K, it is half as luminous as the Sun. The planet Venus passes the star around this time every eight years. Regulus is the only 1st magnitude star to sit almost squarely on the ecliptic, which marks the path of the sun, moon and planets across our sky. [citation needed], Regulus is a multiple star system consisting of at least four stars. Regulus passes through SOHO's LASCO C3 every August. Elizabeth Howell (she/her), Ph.D., is a staff writer in the spaceflight channel since 2022 covering diversity, education and gaming as well. Icarus was discovered in 2018 by a team of astronomers who were studying the multiply lensed supernova SN Refsdal with the Hubble Space Telescope. Reblogged this on Die Goldene Landschaft. The stars name, Regulus, means little king or prince in Latin. When Aldebaran was the star of the spring equinox, Regulus would have been the summer solstice star. 3.9). . Regulus is not a binary star for once, although there is a binary nearby, and possibly a white dwarf. Regulus star is also known as Basiliskos, Cor Leonis (Lion's Heart), Qalb al-Asad and Rex. [28] Regulus was occulted by the asteroid 163 Erigone in the early morning of March 20, 2014. Its estimated age is less than 400 million years. NGC 2903 is a barred spiral galaxy. Leo is one of the oldest constellations in the sky. As for what causes the rapid rotation, astronomers at the time said it was a mystery. The Persians knew the star as Miyan, the Centre and as Venant, the guardian of the north. Fierce lion-headed deities, like Sekhmet whose breath formed the desert, and Tefnut who fled to the desert of Nubia in her rage, and the war-god Maahes, were associated both with scorching heat and protection of the pharaoh. The primary star of Regulus A is a young star, only a few million years old, and has 3.5 times the mass of the Sun. It has 21 times the Suns mass, 37 times the radius, and it is about 295,000 times more luminous.
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