Xi

Variable star

Its story

Xi-2 Tauri belongs to an extraordinary hierarchical quadruple: two blue-white B-type stars form an eclipsing binary that circles every 7.15 days, itself orbited by a third B-type star and, far beyond, by an F companion taking some fifty years to complete its turn. Four suns interlaced 209 light-years away in the Bull, performing a stellar clockwork that only careful spectroscopy has managed to untangle.

Constellation: Taurus
Apparent magnitude: 3.73
Distance: 209.1 light years
Coordinates (J2000): RA 51.792° · Dec 9.733°
Catalogue: HIP 16083 · HD 21364

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