Beta Ceti
star in the constellation Cetus
Beta Ceti is the brightest star in the constellation of Cetus. It is officially named Diphda, pronounced ; Beta Ceti is its Bayer designation, which is Latinized from β Ceti and abbreviated Beta Cet and β Cet. Although designated 'beta', it is actually brighter than the 'alpha' star in the constellation, Menkar, by half a magnitude. This orange giant is easy to identify due to its location in an otherwise dark section of the celestial sphere. Based on parallax measurements, it lies at an estimated distance of 96.3 light-years (29.5 parsecs) from the Sun.
Properties
Diphda has an apparent visual magnitude of 2.02, making it the brightest star in Cetus. It has a stellar classification of K0 III, although some sources list a classification of G9.5 III indicating that it lies along the dividing line separating G-type from K-type stars. The luminosity class 'III' means that it is a giant, a star that has consumed the hydrogen at its core and evolved away from the main sequence. With a mass of 3.5 solar masses, Beta Ceti was a B-type star when it formed on the main sequence. After passing through the red giant stage, it underwent a helium flash event and is now a red clump star generating energy through the thermonuclear fusion of helium at its core.
The public source identifies “Beta Ceti” as star in the constellation Cetus. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Beta, Ceti and star.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q13170. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Beta Ceti” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.