Beta Eridani
star in the constellation of Eridanus
Beta Eridani (β Eridani, abbreviated Beta Eri, β Eri), formally named Cursa , is the second-brightest star in the barely equatorial-southern constellation of Eridanus, located in the northeast end of this constellation near the shared border with Orion. The apparent visual magnitude of this star is 2.796, so it can be viewed with the naked eye in dark skies. Parallax measurements yield an estimated distance of about 89 light-years (27 parsecs) from the Earth.
Nomenclature
Beta Eridani is the star's Bayer designation. It has the traditional name Cursa derived from Al Kursiyy al Jauzah, "the Chair (or "Footstool") of the Central One". This is the name of the star association consisting of this star along with Lambda Eridani, Psi Eridani and Tau Orionis.
According to a NASA catalogue of stars, Al Kursiyy al Jauzah was the title of three stars: β Eri is Cursa, Psi Eridani Al Kursiyy al Jauzah I, and Lambda Eridani Al Kursiyy al Jauzah II (excluding Tau Orionis).
In 2016, the International Astronomical Union organized a Working Group on Star Names (WGSN) to catalog and standardize proper names for stars. The WGSN's first bulletin of July 2016 included a table of the first two batches of names approved by the WGSN; which included Cursa for this star.
In Chinese, 玉井 (Yù Jǐng), "the Jade Well", refers to an asterism consisting of β Eridani, λ Eridani, ψ Eridani and τ Orionis.
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This entry incorporates text from “Beta Eridani” 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.