Zeta Aurigae

Zeta Aurigae as portrayed by the artist Chesley Bonestell. © Bonestell Space Art, used with permission

A famous eclipsing binary in the constellation Auriga and one of the Kids (in Latin "Haedus"). It is also known as Haedus I and by an astonishing coincidence, its constellation mate, Epsilon Aurigae, which is the second Kid ("Haedus II"), is also a well-known (and even more remarkable) eclipsing binary.

Zeta consists an orange supergiant (spectral type K4) in orbit around a blue B star (type B5) with a period of 972.2 days (2.66 years). Because the orientation of the orbit lies within 3° of our line of sight, every 2.66 years the smaller B star hides completely behind the larger K star (which is about as wide as Venus's orbit), and the combined visual light drops by 0.15 magnitude (about 15%). Averaging 4.2 AU apart, the two go around each other in an elliptical orbit that takes them from 5.9 AU to 2.5 AU apart.

visual magnitude	3.69
absolute magnitude	-3.23
spectral type	K4II
surface temperature	3,950 K (K star), 15,300 K (B star)
luminosity	4,800 L_sun (K star), 1,000 L_sun (B star)
radius	148 R_sun (K star), 4.5 R_sun (B star)
mass	5.8 M_sun (K star), 4.8 M_sun (B star)
distance	790 ± 150 light-years (242 ± 47 pc)
position	R.A. 05h 02m 28.7s; Dec. +41° 04' 33"
other designations	Haedi Haedus, Sadatoni, Saclateni, 8 Aurigae, HR 1612, HD 32068, BD+40°1142A, FK5 1137, HIP 23453, SAO 39966, GC 6137, CCDM 05025+4105

Related categories

• NOTABLE STARS
• VARIABLE STARS

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