Kapteyn's Star

Kapteyn's Star

The red dot shows the approximate location of Kapteyn's Star in Pictor.
Observation data
Epoch J2000      Equinox J2000
Constellation Pictor
Right ascension 05h 11m 40.58112s[1]
Declination −45° 01′ 06.2899″[1]
Apparent magnitude (V) 8.853[2]
Characteristics
Spectral type sdM1[2]
U−B color index +1.21[3]
B−V color index +1.57[3]
Variable type BY Dra[4]
Astrometry
Radial velocity (Rv)+245.2[5] km/s
Proper motion (μ) RA: +6,505.08[1] mas/yr
Dec.: -5,730.84[1] mas/yr
Parallax (π)255.66 ± 0.91[1] mas
Distance12.76 ± 0.05 ly
(3.91 ± 0.01 pc)
Absolute magnitude (MV)10.89[2]
Details
Mass0.274[6] M☉
Radius0.291±0.025[7] R☉
Surface gravity (log g)4.96[6] cgs
Temperature3550 ±100 K
Metallicity [Fe/H]−0.99±0.04[8] dex
Rotational velocity (v sin i)9.15[9] km/s
Age~11[6] Gyr
Other designations
VZ Pictoris, GJ 191, HD 33793, CD-45°1841, CP(D)-44°612, SAO 217223, LHS 29, LTT 2200, LFT 395, GCTP 1181, HIP 24186.[3]
Database references
SIMBADThe star
planet b
planet c

Kapteyn's Star is a class M1 red subdwarf about 12.76 light years from Earth in the southern constellation Pictor; it is the closest halo star to the Solar System. With a magnitude of nearly 9 it is visible through binoculars or a telescope.[3]

Its diameter is 30% of the Sun's, but its luminosity just 1.2% that of the Sun's. It may have once been part of the globular cluster Omega Centauri, itself a likely dwarf galaxy swallowed up by the Milky Way in the distant past. The discovery of two planets — Kapteyn b and Kapteyn c — was announced in 2014.

History of observations

Comparison with Sun, Jupiter and Earth.
Jacobus Cornelius Kapteyn, the Dutch astronomer who discovered Kapteyn's Star.

Attention was first drawn to what is now known as Kapteyn's Star by the Dutch astronomer Jacobus Kapteyn in 1898.[10] Under the name CPD-44 612 it was included in the Cape photographic Durchmusterung for the equinox 1875 (-38 to -52) by David Gill and Jacobus Cornelius Kapteyn in 1897.[11] This catalogue was based on Gill's observations from the Cape Observatory in 1885—1889 and was created in collaboration with Kapteyn. While he was reviewing star charts and photographic plates, Kapteyn noted that a star, previously catalogued in 1873 by B.A. Gould as C.Z. V 243, seemed to be missing. However, R.T.A. Innes found an uncatalogued star about 15 arc seconds away from the absent star's position. It became clear that the star had, in fact, a very high proper motion of more than 8 arc seconds per year and had moved significantly in the meantime. Later, CPD-44 612 came to be referred to as Kapteyn's Star[12] although it is clear that equal credit should be accorded to Robert Innes.[13] At the time of its discovery, it had the highest proper motion of any star known, dethroning Groombridge 1830. With the discovery of Barnard's Star in 1916,[14] Kapteyn's Star dropped to second place, where it remains.[6][12] In 2014, two super-Earth planet candidates in orbit around the star were announced.[15]

Characteristics

Based upon parallax measurements with the Hipparcos astrometry satellite,[1] Kapteyn's Star is at a distance of 12.76 light-years (3.91 parsecs) from the Earth.[1] It came within 7.00 light-years (2.15 parsecs) of the Sun about 10,800 years ago and has been moving away since that time.[16] The star is between one quarter and one third the size and mass of the Sun and has a much cooler effective temperature at about 3500 K, with some disagreement in the exact measurements between different observers.[6] The stellar classification is sdM1,[2] which indicates that it is a subdwarf with a luminosity lower than that of a main-sequence star at the same spectral type of M1. The abundance of elements other than hydrogen and helium, what astronomers term the metallicity, is about 14% of the abundance in the Sun.[8][17] It is a variable star of the BY Draconis type with the identifier VZ Pictoris. This means that the luminosity of the star changes because of magnetic activity in the chromosphere coupled with rotation moving the resulting star spots into and out of the line of sight with respect to the Earth.[4]

Kapteyn's Star is distinctive in a number of other regards: it has a high radial velocity,[12] orbits the Milky Way retrograde,[6] and is the nearest known halo star to the Sun.[18] It is a member of a moving group of stars that share a common trajectory through space, named the Kapteyn moving group.[19] Based upon their element abundances, these stars may once have been members of Omega Centauri, a globular cluster that is thought to be the remnant of a dwarf galaxy that merged with the Milky Way. During this process, the stars in the group, including Kapteyn's Star, may have been stripped away as tidal debris.[6][20][21]

Visibility

The star is at an apparent magnitude of 9 and is visible through binoculars or a telescope in the constellation of Pictor, in the southern sky, on a clear night.[22]

Planetary system

In 2014, Kapteyn's Star was announced to host two planets, Kapteyn b and Kapteyn c. Kapteyn b is the oldest-known potentially habitable planet, estimated to be 11 billion years old.[15]

The planets are close to a 5:2 period commensurability, but resonances could not be confirmed at the time. Dynamical integration of the orbits suggests[15] that the pair of planets are in a dynamical state called apsidal co-rotation, which usually implies that the system is dynamically stable over long time scales.[23] The announcement of the planetary system was accompanied by a science-fiction short-story, "Sad Kapteyn", written by writer Alastair Reynolds.[24]

The Kapteyn's star planetary system[15]
Companion
(in order from star)		 Mass Semimajor axis
(AU)		 Orbital period
(days)		 Eccentricity Inclination Radius
b ≥ 4.8+0.9
−1.0 M⊕		 0.168+0.006
−0.008		 48.616+0.036
−0.032		 0.21+0.11
−0.10		 — ≥ 1.5 R⊕
c ≥ 7.0+1.2
−1.0 M⊕		 0.311+0.038
−0.014		 121.53+0.25
−0.25		 0.23+0.10
−0.12		 — —

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 van Leeuwen, F. (November 2007), "Validation of the new Hipparcos reduction", Astronomy and Astrophysics, 474 (2): 653–664, arXiv:0708.1752Freely accessible, Bibcode:2007A&A...474..653V, doi:10.1051/0004-6361:20078357.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Koen, C.; et al. (April 2010), "UBV(RI)C JHK observations of Hipparcos-selected nearby stars", Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 403 (4): 1949–1968, Bibcode:2010MNRAS.403.1949K, doi:10.1111/j.1365-2966.2009.16182.x
  3. 1 2 3 4 "V* VZ Pic -- Variable Star", SIMBAD, Centre de Données astronomiques de Strasbourg, retrieved 2009-10-14.
  4. 1 2 "VZ Pic", General Catalogue of Variable Stars, Sternberg Astronomical Institute, Moscow, Russia, retrieved 2009-10-14
  5. ↑ Nordström, B.; et al. (May 2004), "The Geneva-Copenhagen survey of the Solar neighbourhood. Ages, metallicities, and kinematic properties of ˜14 000 F and G dwarfs", Astronomy and Astrophysics, 418 (3): 989–1019, arXiv:astro-ph/0405198Freely accessible, Bibcode:2004A&A...418..989N, doi:10.1051/0004-6361:20035959
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Kotoneva, E.; et al. (2005), "A study of Kapteyn's star", Astronomy & Astrophysics, 438 (3): 957–962, Bibcode:2005A&A...438..957K, doi:10.1051/0004-6361:20042287.
  7. ↑ Demory, B.-O.; et al. (October 2009), "Mass-radius relation of low and very low-mass stars revisited with the VLTI", Astronomy and Astrophysics, 505 (1): 205–215, arXiv:0906.0602Freely accessible, Bibcode:2009A&A...505..205D, doi:10.1051/0004-6361/200911976
  8. 1 2 Woolf, Vincent M.; Wallerstein, George (January 2005), "Metallicity measurements using atomic lines in M and K dwarf stars", Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 356 (3): 963–968, arXiv:astro-ph/0410452Freely accessible, Bibcode:2005MNRAS.356..963W, doi:10.1111/j.1365-2966.2004.08515.x
  9. ↑ Houdebine, E. R. (September 2010), "Observation and modelling of main-sequence star chromospheres - XIV. Rotation of dM1 stars", Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 407 (3): 1657–1673, Bibcode:2010MNRAS.407.1657H, doi:10.1111/j.1365-2966.2010.16827.x
  10. ↑ Kapteyn, J. C. (1898), "Stern mit grösster bislang bekannter Eigenbewegung", Astronomische Nachrichten, 145 (9–10): 159–160, Bibcode:1897AN....145..159K, doi:10.1002/asna.18981450906.
  11. ↑ Dictionary of Nomenclature of Celestial Objects. CPD entry. SIMBAD. Centre de Données astronomiques de Strasbourg.
  12. 1 2 3 Kaler, James B. (2002), "Kapteyn's Star", The Hundred Greatest Stars, Copernicus Books, pp. 108–109.
  13. ↑ Gill, D. (1899). "On the Discovery of a Certain Proper Motion". The Observatory: 99–101.
  14. ↑ Barnard, E. E. (1916), "A small star with large proper motion", Astronomical Journal, 29 (695): 181, Bibcode:1916AJ.....29..181B, doi:10.1086/104156.
  15. 1 2 3 4 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, arXiv:1406.0818Freely accessible, Bibcode:2014MNRAS.443L..89A, doi:10.1093/mnrasl/slu076
  16. ↑ Bobylev, Vadim V. (March 2010), "Searching for Stars Closely Encountering with the Solar System", Astronomy Letters, 36 (3): 220–226, arXiv:1003.2160Freely accessible, Bibcode:2010AstL...36..220B, doi:10.1134/S1063773710030060.
  17. ↑ The abundance is given by taking the metallicity to the power of 10. From Woolf and Wallerstein (2005), [M/H] ≈ –0.86 dex. Thus:
    10−0.86 = 0.138
  18. ↑ Woolf, V. M.; Wallerstein, G. (2004), "Chemical abundance analysis of Kapteyn's Star", Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 350 (2): 575–579, Bibcode:2004MNRAS.350..575W, doi:10.1111/j.1365-2966.2004.07671.x.
  19. ↑ Eggen, O. J. (December 1996), "The Ross 451 Group of Halo Stars", Astronomical Journal, 112: 2661, Bibcode:1996AJ....112.2661E, doi:10.1086/118210
  20. ↑ Wylie-de Boer, Elizabeth; Freeman, Ken; Williams, Mary (February 2010), "Evidence of Tidal Debris from ω Cen in the Kapteyn Group", The Astronomical Journal, 139 (2): 636–645, arXiv:0910.3735Freely accessible, Bibcode:2010AJ....139..636W, doi:10.1088/0004-6256/139/2/636
  21. ↑ "Backward star ain't from round here", New Scientist, November 4, 2009
  22. ↑ "Kapteyn b and c: Two Exoplanets Found Orbiting Kapteyn's Star". Sci-News. Retrieved 23 July 2014.
  23. ↑ Michtchenko, Tatiana A.; et al. (August 2011), "Modeling the secular evolution of migrating planet pairs", Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 415: 2275, arXiv:1103.5485Freely accessible, Bibcode:2011MNRAS.415.2275M, doi:10.1111/j.1365-2966.2011.18857.x
  24. ↑ "Sad Kapteyn", Science fiction story released with the announcement of planetary system, Jun 4, 2014, retrieved 2014-06-04

Notes

    Additional reading

    • Luyten, W. J. (1927), "Note on the magnitude and spectrum of Kapteyn's star", Harvard College Observatory Bulletin, 843: 3–4, Bibcode:1927BHarO.843....3L .
    • MacConnell, D. J. (1973), "The spectrum and colors of Kapteyn's star", Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 5: 346, Bibcode:1973BAAS....5..346M .
    • Murdin, Paul, ed. (2001), "Kapteyn's Star", Encyclopedia of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Bristol: Institute of Physics Publishing, doi:10.1888/0333750888/5156 .
    • Perryman, Michael (2010), The Making of History's Greatest Star Map, Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag, doi:10.1007/978-3-642-11602-5 .
    • Wing, R. F.; Dean, C. A.; MacConnell, D. J. (1976), "The temperature, luminosity, and spectrum of Kapteyn's star", The Astrophysical Journal, 205: 186–193, Bibcode:1976ApJ...205..186W, doi:10.1086/154263 .

    External links

    Coordinates: 05h 11m 41s, −45° 01′ 06″

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