ebaran

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Not to be confused with Alderamin or Alderaan.
For other uses, see Aldebaran (disambiguation).
"Alpha Tauri" redirects here. For the fashion company, see AlphaTauri.
Aldebaran
Taurus constellation map.svg
Aldebaran in the Taurus constellation
Observation data
Epoch J2000.0 Equinox J2000.0
Constellation Taurus
Pronunciation /ælˈdɛbərən/[1][2]
Right ascension 04h 35m 55.23907s[3]
Declination +16° 30′ 33.4885″[3]
Apparent magnitude (V) 0.75–0.95[4]
Characteristics
Evolutionary stage Red giant branch[5]
Spectral type K5+ III[6]
Apparent magnitude (J) −2.095[7]
U−B color index +1.92[8]
B−V color index +1.44[8]
Variable type LB[4]
Astrometry
Radial velocity (Rv) +54.26±0.03[9] km/s
Proper motion (μ) RA: 63.45±0.84[3] mas/yr
Dec.: −188.94±0.65[3] mas/yr
Parallax (π) 49.97 ± 0.75[10] mas
Distance 65.3 ± 1.0 ly
(20.0 ± 0.3 pc)
Absolute magnitude (MV) −0.641±0.034[10]
Details
Mass 1.16±0.07[11] M☉
Radius 44.13±0.84[12] R☉
Luminosity 439±17[13] L☉
Surface gravity (log g) 1.45±0.3[14] cgs
Temperature 3,900±50[14] K
Metallicity [Fe/H] −0.33±0.1[14] dex
Rotation 520 days[15]
Rotational velocity (v sin i) 3.5±1.5[14] km/s
Age 6.4+1.4
−1.1[11] Gyr
Other designations
87 Tauri, α Tauri, BD+16°629, GJ 171.1, GJ 9159, HD 29139, HIP 21421, HR 1457, SAO
94027
Database references
SIMBAD data
ARICNS data
Aldebaran /ælˈdɛbərən/, designated α Tauri (Latinized to Alpha Tauri, abbreviated
Alpha Tau, α Tau), is a red giant star about 65 light-years from the Sun in the
zodiac constellation Taurus. It is the brightest star in Taurus and generally the
fourteenth-brightest star in the night sky, though it varies slowly in brightness
between magnitude 0.75 and 0.95. Aldebaran hosts a planet several times the size of
Jupiter, named Aldebaran b.

Aldebaran is a red giant, cooler than the sun with a surface temperature of 3,900
K, but its radius is about 44 times the sun's, so it is over 400 times as luminous.
It spins slowly and takes 520 days to complete a rotation.
The planetary exploration probe Pioneer 10 is heading in the general direction of
the star and should make its closest approach in about two million years.

Contents
1 Nomenclature
2 Observation
3 Observational history
4 Physical characteristics
5 Visual companions
6 Planetary system
7 Etymology and mythology
7.1 Mythology
7.2 Names in other languages
7.3 In modern culture
8 References
9 External links
Nomenclature
The traditional name Aldebaran derives from the Arabic al Dabarān, meaning "the
follower", because it seems to follow the Pleiades.[16][17] In 2016, the
International Astronomical Union Working Group on Star Names (WGSN) approved the
proper name Aldebaran for this star.[18][19]

Aldebaran is the brightest star in the constellation Taurus and so has the Bayer
designation α Tauri, Latinised as Alpha Tauri. It has the Flamsteed designation 87
Tauri as the 87th star in the constellation of approximately 7th magnitude or
brighter, ordered by right ascension. It also has the Bright Star Catalogue number
1457, the HD number 29139, and the Hipparcos catalogue number 21421, mostly seen in
scientific publications.

It is a variable star listed in the General Catalogue of Variable Stars, but it is

listed using its Bayer designation and does not have a separate variable star
designation.[4]

Aldebaran and several nearby stars are included in double star catalogues such as
the Washington Double Star Catalog as WDS 04359+1631 and the Aitken Double Star
Catalogue as ADS 3321. It was included with an 11th magnitude companion as a double
star as H IV 66 in the Herschel Catalogue of Double Stars and Σ II 2 in the Struve
Double Star Catalog, and together with a 14th magnitude star as β 550 in the
Burnham Double Star Catalogue.[20][21]

Observation

Aldebaran in the Hyades

Aldebaran is one of the easiest stars to find in the night sky, partly due to its
brightness and partly due to being near one of the more noticeable asterisms in the
sky. Following the three stars of Orion's belt in the opposite direction to Sirius,
the first bright star encountered is Aldebaran.[22]

The star is, by chance, in the line of sight between the Earth and the Hyades, so
it has the appearance of being the brightest member of the open cluster, but the
cluster that forms the bull's-head-shaped asterism is more than twice as far away,
at about 150 light years.[23]

Aldebaran is 5.47 degrees south of the ecliptic and so can be occulted by the Moon.
Such occultations occur when the Moon's ascending node is near the autumnal
equinox. A series of 49 occultations occurred starting on 29 January 2015 and
ending at 3 September 2018.[24] Each event was visible from points in the northern
hemisphere or close to the equator; people in e.g. Australia or South Africa can
never observe an Aldebaran occultation since it is too far south of the ecliptic. A
reasonably accurate estimate for the diameter of Aldebaran was obtained during the
occultation of 22 September 1978.[25] Aldebaran is in conjunction with the Sun
around June 1 of each year.[26]

With a near-infrared J band magnitude of −2.1, only Betelgeuse (−2.9), R Doradus

(−2.6), and Arcturus (−2.2) are brighter at that wavelength.[7]

Observational history

Occultation of Aldebaran by the Moon. Aldebaran is the red dot to the right, barely
visible in the thumbnail.
On 11 March AD 509, a lunar occultation of Aldebaran was observed in Athens,
Greece.[27] English astronomer Edmund Halley studied the timing of this event, and
in 1718 concluded that Aldebaran must have changed position since that time, moving
several minutes of arc further to the north. This, as well as observations of the
changing positions of stars Sirius and Arcturus, led to the discovery of proper
motion. Based on present day observations, the position of Aldebaran has shifted 7′
in the last 2000 years; roughly a quarter the diameter of the full moon.[28][29]
Due to precession of the equinoxes, 5,000 years ago the vernal equinox was close to
Aldebaran.[30]

English astronomer William Herschel discovered a faint companion to Aldebaran in

1782;[31] an 11th magnitude star at an angular separation of 117″. This star was
shown to be itself a close double star by S. W. Burnham in 1888, and he discovered
an additional 14th magnitude companion at an angular separation of 31″. Follow on
measurements of proper motion showed that Herschel's companion was diverging from
Aldebaran, and hence they were not physically connected. However, the companion
discovered by Burnham had almost exactly the same proper motion as Aldebaran,
suggesting that the two formed a wide binary star system.[32]

Working at his private observatory in Tulse Hill, England, in 1864 William Huggins
performed the first studies of the spectrum of Aldebaran, where he was able to
identify the lines of nine elements, including iron, sodium, calcium, and
magnesium. In 1886, Edward C. Pickering at the Harvard College Observatory used a
photographic plate to capture fifty absorption lines in the spectrum of Aldebaran.
This became part of the Draper Catalogue, published in 1890. By 1887, the
photographic technique had improved to the point that it was possible to measure a
star's radial velocity from the amount of Doppler shift in the spectrum. By this
means, the recession velocity of Aldebaran was estimated as 30 miles per second (48
km/s), using measurements performed at Potsdam Observatory by Hermann C. Vogel and
his assistant Julius Scheiner.[33]

Aldebaran was observed using an interferometer attached to the Hooker Telescope at

the Mount Wilson Observatory in 1921 in order to measure its angular diameter, but
it was not resolved in these observations.[34]

The extensive history of observations of Aldebaran led to it being included in the

list of 33 stars chosen as benchmarks for the Gaia mission to calibrate derived
stellar parameters.[35] It had previously been used to calibrate instruments on
board the Hubble Space Telescope.[13]