Astronomical Unit in the context of "Beta Crateris"

Play Trivia Questions online!

 or

Skip to study material about Astronomical Unit in the context of "Beta Crateris"
Ad spacer

>>>PUT SHARE BUTTONS HERE<<<

👉 Astronomical Unit in the context of Beta Crateris

Beta Crateris, Latinized from β Crateris, is a binary star system in the southern constellation of Crater. It is visible to the naked eye with an apparent visual magnitude of 4.46. Based upon an annual parallax shift of 9.59 mas as seen from Earth, it is around 340 light years from the Sun.

This is an astrometric binary star system with an orbital period of 6.0 years and a projected separation of 8.3 AU. The orbit has an estimated semimajor axis of 9.3 AU. The primary component A is listed as an A-type giant star with a stellar classification of A2 III. However, Houk and Smith-Moore (1988) give a main sequence classification of A1 V, while Abt and Morrell (1995) list it as a subgiant star with a class of A2 IV. The spectrum shows enhanced barium, possibly as a result of a previous mass transfer event.

↓ Explore More Topics
In this Dossier

Astronomical Unit in the context of Mars-crossing asteroid

A Mars-crossing asteroid (MCA, also Mars-crosser, MC) is an asteroid whose orbit crosses that of Mars. Some Mars-crossers numbered below 100000 are listed here. They include the two numbered Mars trojans 5261 Eureka and (101429) 1998 VF31.

Many databases, for instance the JPL Small-Body Database (JPL SBDB), only list asteroids with a perihelion greater than 1.3 AU as Mars-crossers. An asteroid with a perihelion less than this is classed as a near-Earth object even though it is crossing the orbit of Mars as well as crossing (or coming near to) that of Earth. Nevertheless, these objects are listed on this page. A grazer is an object with a perihelion below the aphelion of Mars (1.67 AU) but above the Martian perihelion (1.38 AU). The JPL SBDB lists 13,500 Mars-crossing asteroids. Only 18 MCAs are brighter than absolute magnitude (H) 12.5, which typically makes these asteroids with H<12.5 more than 13 km in diameter depending on the albedo. The smallest known MCAs have an absolute magnitude (H) of around 24 and are typically less than 100 meters in diameter. There are over 21,600 known Mars-crossers of which only 5751 have received a MPC number.

↑ Return to Menu
LINKED FROM (PARENTS)
← Mars-crossing asteroid ← Beta Crateris
LINKS TO (CHILDREN)