Alpha Columbae
star in the constellation Columba
Alpha Columbae is a third magnitude star in the southern constellation of Columba. It has the proper name Phact (); Alpha Columbae is the Bayer designation, which is Latinized from α Columbae. This star has an apparent visual magnitude of 2.6, making it the brightest member of Columba. Based upon parallax measurements made during the Hipparcos mission, Alpha Columbae is located at a distance of around 261 light-years (80 parsecs).
Nomenclature
α Columbae, Latinized to Alpha Columbae, is the star's Bayer designation. It is abbreviated Alpha Col or α Col.
The traditional name of Phact (also rendered Phad, Phaet, Phakt) derives from the Arabic فاختة fākhitah 'ring dove'. It was originally applied to the constellation Cygnus and later transferred to this star. The etymology of its name hadāri (unknown meaning) has also been suggested. In 2016, the International Astronomical Union organized a Working Group on Star Names (WGSN) to catalog and standardize proper names for stars.
“Alpha Columbae” enters the record as star in the constellation Columba. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Alpha, Columbae and star can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q15709. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2016.
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This entry incorporates text from “Alpha Columbae” 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.