Regulus: The Heart of the Lion
By: Monica Mahajan - 4th period
What is Regulus?
Why Is Regulus Called "The Heart of The Lion"?
- The Kingly One,
- Little King,
- Alpha Leonis, and
- a few other names
Terms To Know
Light Year
A unit of measure for distance. A light year is the distance light can travel in one year.
How much energy, or light, a star gives off from its surface.
Absolute Magnitude
How bright a star looks from a standard distance of 36.2 light-years.
Apparent Magnitude
How bright a star looks like from Earth.
Compared To Our Sun...
- This star surface temperature is 12,000 K (about 21,000 degrees Fahrenheit!), much hotter than our Sun's surface temperature.
- The luminosity of Regulus is 240 L, whereas the Sun's is 1 L.
- Regulus is about 50 million years old, while the Sun is about 5 billion years old!
- Regulus is a main sequence star, like the Sun.
Other Statistics
- Apparent magnitude: 1.36
- Absolute magnitude: -0.52
- Right ascension: 10 hrs, 8 min, 22.3 sec
- one of the two coordinates of a point on the celestial sphere (part of equatorial coordinate system)
- Declination: +11 degrees, 58 min, 2 sec
- the other coordinate
- About 78 light years away from Earth!
Did You Know...
To see the other brightest stars, click...
Sources Used
http://www.universetoday.com/39725/1-light-year/ 9/24/14
http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/cosmos/A/Absolute+Magnitude 9/24/14
http://www.astronomynotes.com/starprop/s4.htm 9/24/14
http://solar-center.stanford.edu/FAQ/Qage.html 9/24/14
http://www.astro.wisc.edu/~dolan/constellations/extra/brightest.html 9/24/14
http://www.space.com/22890-regulus.html 9/24/14
https://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Right_ascension.html 9/24/14
http://earthsky.org/brightest-stars/best-regulus-the-heart-of-the-lion 9/19/14
http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/R/Regulus.html 9/19/14
Images:
http://jumk.de/astronomie/big-stars/regulus.shtml 9/24/14
http://mashable.com/2013/07/31/harry-potter-new-book-covers/ 9/24/14
http://coraskywalker.wordpress.com/tag/regulus-star/ 9/24/14
http://factspage.blogspot.com/2013/12/leo-constellation.html 9/24/14