Rho Indi
Encyclopedia
Rho Indi is a yellow subgiant star
in the constellation
Indus
. It is, barely, a naked eye
star, not visible in the northern hemisphere
outside the tropics
. The age of the star is almost 13 Gya
and it will soon die away as a planetary nebula
.
, Rho Indi b
.
Star
A star is a massive, luminous sphere of plasma held together by gravity. At the end of its lifetime, a star can also contain a proportion of degenerate matter. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun, which is the source of most of the energy on Earth...
in the constellation
Constellation
In modern astronomy, a constellation is an internationally defined area of the celestial sphere. These areas are grouped around asterisms, patterns formed by prominent stars within apparent proximity to one another on Earth's night sky....
Indus
Indus (constellation)
Indus is a constellation in the southern sky. Created in the sixteenth century, it represents an Indian, a word that could refer at the time to any native of Asia or the Americas.-Notable features:...
. It is, barely, a naked eye
Naked eye
The naked eye is a figure of speech referring to human visual perception unaided by a magnifying or light-collecting optical device, such as a telescope or microscope. Vision corrected to normal acuity using corrective lenses is considered "naked"...
star, not visible in the northern hemisphere
Northern Hemisphere
The Northern Hemisphere is the half of a planet that is north of its equator—the word hemisphere literally means “half sphere”. It is also that half of the celestial sphere north of the celestial equator...
outside the tropics
Tropics
The tropics is a region of the Earth surrounding the Equator. It is limited in latitude by the Tropic of Cancer in the northern hemisphere at approximately N and the Tropic of Capricorn in the southern hemisphere at S; these latitudes correspond to the axial tilt of the Earth...
. The age of the star is almost 13 Gya
Gya
In astronomy, geology, and paleontology, Gya or Ga is a year multiplied by one of the SI prefix multipliers. It is often used as a unit of time to denote length of time before the present...
and it will soon die away as a planetary nebula
Planetary nebula
A planetary nebula is an emission nebula consisting of an expanding glowing shell of ionized gas ejected during the asymptotic giant branch phase of certain types of stars late in their life...
.
Planetary system
On September 17, 2002, this star was found to have a planetExtrasolar planet
An extrasolar planet, or exoplanet, is a planet outside the Solar System. A total of such planets have been identified as of . It is now known that a substantial fraction of stars have planets, including perhaps half of all Sun-like stars...
, Rho Indi b
Rho Indi b
Rho Indi b is a planet that orbits around Rho Indi. Its semimajor axis is 2.54 AU placing just outside the star’s habitable zone. The planet takes 3.7 years to orbit the star. It is over twice as massive as Jupiter.-External links:* *...
.