Star
An orange supergiant and the brightest star in Ara, over a hundred times the radius of the Sun.
| Type | Star |
|---|---|
| Distance from Earth | 715 ly |
| Diameter | 197,761,000 km |
| Mass | 1.63 × 10³¹ kg |
| Temperature | 3,924°C |
| Apparent magnitude | 2.85 |
| Redshift | 0 |
| Hemisphere | Southern |
| Discovered | 150 |
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 197,761,000 km across, Beta Arae is 142 times the diameter of the Sun.
Its mass is 8.2 times the mass of the Sun.
The light reaching us from Beta Arae tonight left it around 715 years ago.
Its surface sits at 4,197 K, cooler than the Sun at 5,772 K, which is what sets its colour.
It has been on record since the year 150.
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