Star
A hot blue giant and the brightest star in Pyxis, tens of thousands of times more luminous than the Sun.
| Type | Star |
|---|---|
| Distance from Earth | 880 ly |
| Diameter | 8,773,880 km |
| Mass | 2.13 × 10³¹ kg |
| Temperature | 24,027°C |
| Apparent magnitude | 3.67 |
| Redshift | 0 |
| Hemisphere | Southern |
| Discovered | 1756 |
Stars spend most of their lives fusing hydrogen into helium in their core, and it's the balance between that outward pressure and gravity pulling inward that fixes how big and how bright a star gets.
At 8,773,880 km across, Alpha Pyxidis is 6.3 times the diameter of the Sun.
Its mass is 11 times the mass of the Sun.
The light reaching us from Alpha Pyxidis tonight left it around 880 years ago.
Its surface sits at 24,300 K, hotter than the Sun at 5,772 K, which is what sets its colour.
It has been on record since 1756.
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