Friday 6 January 2012

arturus

ARCTURUS
DISTANCE: 37 ly
APPARENT MAGNITUDE: −0.04 m
SPECTRAL CLASS: K1. lll

The red giant Arcturus is roughly 25 times the diameter of our sun. It is not the largest of the red giant, however, as the diagram below shows. Because of its larger size, in visible light Arcturus radiates more than 100 times the light of our sun. If you consider infrared and other forms of radiant energy, Arcturus is about 200 times more powerful than the sun. Its mass is hard to exactly determine, but may be slightly greater than that of our sun.