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The Hipparcos parallax for Sirius is only accurate to about ±0.04 light years, giving a distance of 8.6light years. [9] SiriusB is generally assumed to be at the same distance. SiriusB has a Gaia Data Release 3 parallax with a much smaller statistical margin of error, giving a distance of 8.709 ±0.005light years, but it is flagged as having a very large value for astrometric excess noise, which indicates that the parallax value may be unreliable. [11] Discovery of Sirius B [ edit ] Hubble Space Telescope image of SiriusA and SiriusB. The white dwarf can be seen to the lower left. The diffraction spikes and concentric rings are instrumental effects. The first spectrum of Sirius B was obtained at Mount Wilson Observatory in 1920. The first photograph of the companion was taken by Dr. Irving W. Lendenblad of the U.S. Naval Observatory in 1970. HD 51251 – Star in double system". SIMBAD Astronomical Database. Centre de Données astronomiques de Strasbourg . Retrieved 18 February 2014. Ancient Polynesians used Sirius for navigation, and saw it as part of the Great Bird constellation called Manu. The bright star Canopus in Carina marked the southern wingtip and Procyon in Canis Minor the northern one. The constellation divided the sky into two hemispheres, and the stars were used as latitude markers. The declination of Sirius matches the latitude of Fiji at 17°S, which means that the star passes directly over the islands every night. In ancient Egypt, Sirius was known as Sopdet (Greek: Σῶθις, or Sothis), the goddess who was part of the triad with her husband Osiris and son Horus. The hieroglyph for Sothis has a star and a triangle.
Rogers, John H. (1998). "Origins of the Ancient Constellations: II. The Mediterranean Traditions". Journal of the British Astronomical Association. 108 (2): 79–89. Bibcode: 1998JBAA..108...79R.
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The colour of Sirius has caused some debate over the centuries, as a number of ancient accounts indicated that the star was red. The Greek astronomer Ptolemy was one of the many who described its appearance as reddish. Around the year 150 AD, he mentioned the star’s reddish colour, including it with five other stars that are all known to be either red or orange: Antares in Scorpius constellation, Arcturus in Bo ötes, Betelgeuse in Orion, Aldebaran in Taurus, and Pollux in Gemini. Seneca, too, had noted that Sirius was of a deeper red colour than Mars. However, at the same time, there were many observers who described the star as blue or white. Sirius has more than 50 names and designations attached to it. In medieval astrolabes from western Europe it is called Alhabor. This is the name Geoffrey Chaucer used in his Treatise on the Astrolabe, with the star depicted as a dog’s head. Kappa Canis Majoris – Be Star". SIMBAD Astronomical Database. Centre de Données astronomiques de Strasbourg . Retrieved 2 March 2014.
Hellbent On Changing Her Station From Actress To Writer-Director, Jennifer Esposito Signs With Echo Lake For Filmmaking After ‘Fresh Kills’ Debut The possibility that stellar evolution of either SiriusA or SiriusB could be responsible for this discrepancy has been rejected by astronomers on the grounds that the timescale of thousands of years is much too short and that there is no sign of the nebulosity in the system that would be expected had such a change taken place. [63] An interaction with a third star, to date undiscovered, has also been proposed as a possibility for a red appearance. [70] Alternative explanations are either that the description as red is a poetic metaphor for ill fortune, or that the dramatic scintillations of the star when rising left the viewer with the impression that it was red. To the naked eye, it often appears to be flashing with red, white, and blue hues when near the horizon. [63] Observation [ edit ] Sirius ( bottom) and the constellation Orion ( right). The three brightest stars in this image—Sirius, Betelgeuse ( top right) and Procyon ( top left)—form the Winter Triangle. The bright star at top center is Alhena, which forms a cross-shaped asterism with the Winter Triangle. Tomkin, Jocelyn (April 1998). "Once and Future Celestial Kings". Sky and Telescope. 95 (4): 59–63. Bibcode: 1998S&T....95d..59T. Mateu, Cecilia; Vivas, A. Katherina; Zinn, Robert; Miller, Lissa R.; Abad, Carlos (2009). "No Excess of RR Lyrae Stars in the Canis Major Overdensity". The Astronomical Journal. 37 (5): 4412–23. arXiv: 0903.0376. Bibcode: 2009AJ....137.4412M. doi: 10.1088/0004-6256/137/5/4412. S2CID 18967866. The heliacal rising is the first rising of a star (or a planet, a constellation, or the Moon) over the eastern horizon just before sunrise after a period when the star had not been visible. Every day after the heliacal rising, the star rises a bit earlier and is visible for a little longer before dawn. Star system
The Sirius “Mystery”
The IUE Mega Campaign: Wind Structure and Variability of HD 50896 (WN5) Astrophysical Journal Letters 452 #1, pp. L57 (October 1995) Bibcode: 1995ApJ...452L..57S Sirius, also known as the Dog Star, α Canis Majoris (Alpha Canis Majoris), or Canicula, is the brightest star in the night sky. It lies at a distance of 8.60 light years (2.64 parsecs) from Earth, in the constellation Canis Major, the Greater Dog. Sirius is not the brightest star because it is more luminous than other visible stars, but because it is located so close to the solar system. It is the fifth closest star system to Earth and contains two of the eight nearest stars to Earth.
For the Evulz: This appears to be the motive of the airport couple, Higs notes that they certainly weren't getting anything useful off their victims.Z Canis Majoris is a star system a mere 300,000 years old composed of two pre-main-sequence stars—a FU Orionis star and a Herbig Ae/Be star, [82] which has brightened episodically by two magnitudes to magnitude 8 in 1987, 2000, 2004 and 2008. [83] The more massive Herbig Ae/Be star is enveloped in an irregular roughly spherical cocoon of dust that has an inner diameter of 20AU (3.0 ×10 9km) and outer diameter of 50AU (7.5 ×10 9km). The cocoon has a hole in it through which light shines that covers an angle of 5 to 10 degrees of its circumference. Both stars are surrounded by a large envelope of in-falling material left over from the original cloud that formed the system. Both stars are emitting jets of material, that of the Herbig Ae/Be star being much larger—11.7 light-years long. [84] Meanwhile, FS Canis Majoris is another star with infra-red emissions indicating a compact shell of dust, but it appears to be a main-sequence star that has absorbed material from a companion. These stars are thought to be significant contributors to interstellar dust. [85] Deep-sky objects [ edit ] The Romans celebrated the heliacal setting of Sirius around 25April, sacrificing a dog, along with incense, wine, and a sheep, to the goddess Robigo so that the star's emanations would not cause wheat rust on wheat crops that year. [33]
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