Star profile
Kappa Mensa
Hot blue starWhat is Kappa Mensa
Kappa Mensae shines in the Table Mountain, the southernmost constellation in the sky, created by Lacaille in homage to the mountain that dominates Cape Town. It is a hot blue B-type star 285 light-years away, young and bright, visible only from the southern hemisphere. Curiously, the Large Magellanic Cloud, that satellite galaxy of the Milky Way, drapes itself over the outline of Mensa, as if the earthly mountain were supporting a cosmic tablecloth of extragalactic stars.
Where it is and when to see it
Kappa 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 Kappa Mensa
- Constellation
- Mensa
- Apparent magnitude
- 5.46
- Distance
- 285.1 light years
- Coordinates (J2000)
- RA 87.570° · Dec -79.361°
- Catalogue
- HIP 27566 · HD 40953
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
- Theta Mensa5.45
- Eta Mensa5.47
- Mu Mensa5.53
- Epsilon Mensa5.54
- Zeta Mensa5.61