hip-42917

Variable star

Its story

49 Cancri burns about 423 light-years away within the modest Crab of the zodiac. It is an Alpha-2 Canum Venaticorum variable —catalogued BI Cancri since 1962— whose brightness slides between magnitude 5.58 and 5.71 every seven days, paced by its rotation. Its atmosphere, peculiar even among A-type stars, shows enhanced lines of silicon, europium and chromium: a magnetic field turns it into a living chemical patchwork, spots that wheel in and out of view as it turns.

Constellation: Cancer
Apparent magnitude: 5.63
Distance: 423.1 light years
Coordinates (J2000): RA 131.188° · Dec 10.082°
Catalogue: HIP 42917 · HD 74521

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