Kapteyn's Star
subdwarf star in the constellation Pictor
Kapteyn's Star is a red subdwarf of spectral type M1. It is located about 12.83 light years away from the Earth in the constellation Pictor. It is the closest star with a halo to the Solar System. Since, it has an apparent magnitude of nearly 9, it is visible through binoculars or a telescope.[1]
The star is 30% of the diameter of the Sun but just 1.2% as luminous. It may have been used to be part of the globular cluster Omega Centauri. In 2014, two planets, Kapteyn b and Kapteyn c, were thought to orbit the star.[2] but had a mix of disagreements and agreements, but a study in 2021 showed that both "planets" were just effects of the star's rotation and activity.[3]
References
change- ↑ Kapteyn b and c: Two Exoplanets Found Orbiting Kapteyn's Star, Sci-News, archived from the original on 3 August 2014, retrieved 23 July 2014.
- ↑ Anglada-Escudé, Guillem; et al. (2014), "Two planets around Kapteyn's star : a cold and a temperate super-Earth orbiting the nearest halo red-dwarf", Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters, 443: L89–L93, arXiv:1406.0818, Bibcode:2014MNRAS.443L..89A, doi:10.1093/mnrasl/slu076, S2CID 67807856.
- ↑ Bortle, Anna; et al. (2021), "A Gaussian Process Regression Reveals No Evidence for Planets Orbiting Kapteyn's Star", The Astronomical Journal, 161 (5): 230, arXiv:2103.02709, Bibcode:2021AJ....161..230B, doi:10.3847/1538-3881/abec89, S2CID 232110395.