Red supergiant star in the constellation Cassiopeia
V762 Cassiopeiae is a red supergiant and a variable star located about 2,500 light-years away in the Cassiopeia constellation. Its apparent magnitude vary between 5.82 and 5.95, which makes it faintly visible to the naked eye under dark skies . It is a relatively cool star with an average surface temperature of 3,869 K .
Characteristics
A light curve for V762 Cassiopeiae, plotted from Hipparcos data[ 7]
V762 Cassiopeiae has a spectral classification of K0 I,[ 3] meaning that it is an evolved K-type red supergiant star. It is estimated to be ten million years old, has around 16.9 times the Sun's mass[ 4] and has expanded to 266 times the Sun's diameter. It radiates 15,000 times the solar luminosity from its photosphere at an effective temperature of 3869 K ,[ 5] which gives it an orange-red hue , typical of red supergiants.[ 8] Parallax measurements from the Gaia spacecraft show that V762 Cassiopeiae is located 2,480 light-years away.[ 1] At the estimated distance, V762 Cassiopeiae's apparent brightness is diminished by 1.04 magnitudes due to interstellar extinction .[ 5]
Hipparcos satellite data showed that the star is variable , and because of that it was given the variable-star designation V762 Cassiopeiae, in 1999.[ 9] The variability amplitude in visible light is only about 0.1 magnitudes. The International Variable Star Index lists it as an irregular variable ,[ 2] but the General Catalogue of Variable Stars (GCVS) classifies it as a BY Draconis star .[ 10] The designation of GCVS is erroneous, since BY Draconis variability is a characteristic of main sequence stars.[ 11]
Distance and titleholding
Some websites claim V762 Cassiopeiae is the "farthest star visible to the naked eye", at a distance of 16,308 light-years.[ 12] [ 13] This is inconsistent with parallax measurements from both Hipparcos , which found a parallax of 1.18± 0.45 mas , corresponding to a distance of about 2,800 light-years,[ 14] and Gaia DR3 , which lists a parallax of 1.3148± 0.0693 mas , corresponding to a distance of about 2,500 light-years.[ 1] [ a] The websites claiming that V762 Cassiopeiae is the "farthest star visible to the naked eye" also do not cite any references for the distance of 16,308 light-years, making the origin of this value uncertain.
Notes
References
^ a b c d e f g Vallenari, A.; et al. (Gaia collaboration) (2023). "Gaia Data Release 3. Summary of the content and survey properties" . Astronomy and Astrophysics . 674 : A1. arXiv :2208.00211 . Bibcode :2023A&A...674A...1G . doi :10.1051/0004-6361/202243940 . S2CID 244398875 .
Gaia DR3 record for this source at VizieR .
^ a b c d "V0762 Cas" . The International Variable Star Index . AAVSO. Retrieved 8 May 2024 .
^ a b c d Messineo, M.; Brown, A. G. A. (2019-07-01). "A Catalog of Known Galactic K-M Stars of Class I Candidate Red Supergiants in Gaia DR2" . The Astronomical Journal . 158 (1): 20. arXiv :1905.03744 . Bibcode :2019AJ....158...20M . doi :10.3847/1538-3881/ab1cbd . ISSN 0004-6256 . V762 Cassiopeiae's database entry at VizieR.
^ a b c Tetzlaff, N.; Neuhäuser, R.; Hohle, M. M. (2011-01-01). "A catalogue of young runaway Hipparcos stars within 3 kpc from the Sun" . Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society . 410 (1): 190– 200. arXiv :1007.4883 . Bibcode :2011MNRAS.410..190T . doi :10.1111/j.1365-2966.2010.17434.x . ISSN 0035-8711 . V762 Cassiopeiae's database entry at VizieR.
^ a b c d e Healy, Sarah; Horiuchi, Shunsaku; Molla, Marta Colomer; Milisavljevic, Dan; Tseng, Jeff; Bergin, Faith; Weil, Kathryn; Tanaka, Masaomi (2024-03-23). "Red Supergiant Candidates for Multimessenger Monitoring of the Next Galactic Supernova" . Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society . 529 (4): 3630– 3650. arXiv :2307.08785 . Bibcode :2024MNRAS.529.3630H . doi :10.1093/mnras/stae738 . ISSN 0035-8711 .
^ "HD 7389" . SIMBAD . Centre de données astronomiques de Strasbourg . Retrieved 9 April 2024 .
^ EAS (1997). "The HIPPARCOS and TYCHO catalogues" . Astrometric and Photometric Star Catalogues Derived from the ESA Hipparcos Space Astrometry Mission . ESA SP Series. 1200 . Noordwijk, Netherlands: ESA Publications Division. Bibcode :1997ESASP1200.....E . ISBN 9290923997 . Retrieved 15 October 2022 .
^ "The Colour of Stars" . Australia National Telescope Facility . 6 March 2024. Retrieved 2024-05-27 .
^ Kazarovets, E. V.; Samus, N. N.; Durlevich, O. V.; Frolov, M. S.; Antipin, S. V.; Kireeva, N. N.; Pastukhova, E. N. (January 1999). "The 74th Special Name-list of Variable Stars" (PDF) . Information Bulletin on Variable Stars . 4659 : 1. Bibcode :1999IBVS.4659....1K . Retrieved 8 May 2024 .
^ "Query= V762 Cas" . General Catalogue of Variable Stars . Lomonosov Moscow State University. Retrieved 8 May 2024 .
^ Chahal, Deepak; de Grijs, Richard; Kamath, Devika; Chen, Xiaodian (2022-07-06). "Statistics of BY Draconis Chromospheric Variable Stars" . Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society . 514 (4): 4932– 4943. arXiv :2206.05505 . doi :10.1093/mnras/stac1660 . ISSN 0035-8711 .
^ "Farthest Star You Can See With The Unaided Eye" . Cosmoknowledge . 2021-03-26. Retrieved 2024-04-11 .
^ "How Far Back In Time Can We See With Our Naked Eye?" . Big Think . 2021-05-17. Retrieved 2024-04-11 .
^ "HIP 5926" . VizieR . Centre de données astronomiques de Strasbourg. Retrieved 11 April 2024 .