Epsilon Carinae
star in the southern constellation of Carina
Epsilon Carinae is a binary star in the southern constellation of Carina. It has the official proper name Avior, pronounced ; Epsilon Carinae is its Bayer designation. At apparent magnitude +1.86 it is one of the brightest stars in the night sky, but is not visible from most of the Northern Hemisphere. The False Cross is an asterism formed of Delta Velorum, Kappa Velorum, Iota Carinae and ε Carinae. It is so called because it is sometimes mistaken for the Southern Cross, causing errors in astronavigation.
Characteristics
Epsilon Carinae is located roughly 610 light-years (190 parsecs) from the Sun. Measurements during the Hipparcos mission give the pair an angular separation of 0.46 arcseconds with a difference in magnitude of 2.0. At their estimated distance, this angle is equivalent to a physical separation of 87 astronomical units.
The primary component is a has an apparent visual magnitude of 2.01, which by itself would still make it the third-brightest star in the constellation. It is an evolved giant star with a stellar classification of K3 III. However, examination of the ultraviolet flux from this star suggests it may instead be of spectral type K7.
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This entry incorporates text from “Epsilon Carinae” 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.