Alpha Arae
star in the constellation Ara
Alpha Arae, is the second brightest star in the southern constellation of Ara. Its name is a Bayer designation that is Latinized from α Arae, and abbreviated Alpha Ara or α Ara. With an average apparent visual magnitude 2.93, it is readily visible to the naked eye from the southern hemisphere. This star is close enough to the Earth that its distance can be estimated using parallax data collected during the Hipparcos mission. It is around 270 light-years (83 parsecs) away, with a 7% margin of error. The visual magnitude of the star is diminished by 0.10 magnitudes as a result of extinction from intervening gas and dust.
Properties
Alpha Arae has a stellar classification of B2 Vne, indicating that it is a massive B-type main sequence star. The 'n' notation in the suffix indicates that the absorption lines in the star's spectrum appear spread out and nebulous because of the Doppler effect from rapid rotation. The measured projected rotational velocity has been measured as high as 375 km s−1. Meilland et al.
The public source identifies “Alpha Arae” as star in the constellation Ara. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Alpha, Arae and star.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2074757. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Alpha Arae” 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.