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Alhena (Gamma (<\/span>\u03b3<\/span>) Geminorum) is a bright star in Gemini marking the position of the twin Pollux\u2019s left foot. Its name is derived from the Arabic word for a brand applied to the neck of a camel. <\/span><\/p>\n Alhena is the third-brightest star in Gemini and stands out in a region with few other stars to rival it, roughly midway between the Twin stars Castor (Alpha (<\/span>\u03b1<\/span>) Geminorum) and Pollux (Beta (<\/span>\u03b2<\/span>) Geminorum), and Betelgeuse<\/a> (Alpha (<\/span>\u03b1<\/span>) Orionis).<\/span><\/p>\n Compared to mag. +1.6 Castor, at mag. +1.9 Alhena is not far behind in brightness.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Alhena lies 109 lightyears away. At that distance, to appear as bright as it does to us it must be 123 times more luminous than our Sun.<\/span><\/p>\n Its spectral classification is A1 IV + G, which means it is a white (A1) subgiant (IV).<\/span><\/p>\n The \u2018+ G\u2019 refers to a G-type companion that, with the primary, forms a spectroscopic<\/a> binary system with a period of 12.6 years.<\/span><\/p>\n The primary has a mass 2.8 times larger than our Sun, while the secondary\u2019s mass is 1.1 times that of our Sun.<\/span><\/p>\n The orbit of both stars around their common centre of mass is known to be highly elliptical: with an average separation of 8.5 AU, it brings the pair as close as the Earth\u2013Sun distance and as far apart as Uranus is from the Sun.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Alhena was occulted<\/a> by the asteroid<\/a> 381 Myrrha in 1991, an event which revealed that Myrrha has a diameter of 140km and that the spectroscopic binary companion is 200 times dimmer that Alhena.<\/span><\/p>\n This guide originally appeared in the January 2023 issue of BBC Sky at Night Magazine.<\/p> <\/body><\/html>\n By Pete Lawrence Published: Monday, 16 January 2023 at 12:00 am Alhena (Gamma (\u03b3) Geminorum) is a bright star in Gemini marking the position of the twin Pollux\u2019s left foot. Its name is derived from the Arabic word for a brand applied to the neck of a camel. Alhena is the third-brightest star in Gemini […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":40474,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"2"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2023\/01\/a-guide-to-star-alhena-gamma-geminorum.jpg",1200,800,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2023\/01\/a-guide-to-star-alhena-gamma-geminorum-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2023\/01\/a-guide-to-star-alhena-gamma-geminorum-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2023\/01\/a-guide-to-star-alhena-gamma-geminorum-768x512.jpg",768,512,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2023\/01\/a-guide-to-star-alhena-gamma-geminorum-1024x683.jpg",800,534,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2023\/01\/a-guide-to-star-alhena-gamma-geminorum.jpg",1200,800,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2023\/01\/a-guide-to-star-alhena-gamma-geminorum.jpg",1200,800,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"By Pete Lawrence Published: Monday, 16 January 2023 at 12:00 am Alhena (Gamma (\u03b3) Geminorum) is a bright star in Gemini marking the position of the twin Pollux\u2019s left foot. Its name is derived from the Arabic word for a brand applied to the neck of a camel. Alhena is the third-brightest star in Gemini…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/40473"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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