Star profile
Pi Mensa
Southern polar starWhat is Pi Mensa
Pi Mensae is a yellow star, almost a twin of the Sun, just 60 light-years away —and home to two confirmed worlds. The first, discovered in 2001, is a giant of about 12 Jupiter masses on an eccentric orbit of nearly six years. The second, announced in 2018, was the very first exoplanet detected by NASA's TESS mission: a super-Earth completing its year in just 6.3 days. A modest star turned by chance into a milestone in the search for other worlds.
Where it is and when to see it
Pi Mensa lies in the southern celestial hemisphere. It is visible to the naked eye under a dark sky. Its best month of the year is June: the Sun sits at the opposite point of the sky and the star culminates around midnight. How high it climbs above the horizon depends on the latitude you watch from.
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The signature wall
Stelvia's sky works like a signature wall: anyone can leave their name and a message on a real star, and that signature goes up on the map for everyone to read. Signing is free.
A signature without a lock can be replaced by someone else's. The lock makes the signature permanent and lets you choose a symbolic name for the star, always shown next to the star's catalogue identifier. How the lock works
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A public signature from a real person. The chosen name is a symbolic denomination within Stelvia, with no official standing or IAU recognition: the sky is not for sale and belongs to no one.
Astronomical data for Pi Mensa
- Constellation
- Mensa
- Apparent magnitude
- 5.65
- Distance
- 59.7 light years
- Coordinates (J2000)
- RA 84.287° · Dec -80.469°
- Catalogue
- HIP 26394 · HD 39091
A symbolic commemorative gift: neither the signature nor the chosen name implies ownership of the star or recognition by the IAU.
Other stars in Mensa
Mensa has 15 stars in Stelvia's catalogue. Here are a few of them.
- Alpha Mensa5.08
- Gamma Mensa5.18
- Beta Mensa5.30
- Mu Mensa5.53
- Epsilon Mensa5.54
- Zeta Mensa5.61
- Delta Mensa5.67
- HIP 162905.68