Properties
Beta Aurigae is a binary star system, although the light that the star system releases forges the appearance of a single star in the night sky. The two brightest components are metallic-lined subgiant stars belonging to the A-type stellar classification; they have roughly the same mass and radius. A-type entities are hot stars that release a blue-white hued light; these two stars burn brighter and with more heat than the Sun, which is a G2-type main sequence star. The pair constitute an eclipsing spectroscopic binary; the combined apparent magnitude varies over a period of 3.96 days between +1.89 and +1.94, as every 47.5 hours one of the stars partially eclipses the other from Earth's perspective.
At an angular separation of 13.9 ± 0.3 arcseconds along a position angle of 155° is a companion star that is 8.5 magnitudes fainter than the binary pair. This is a candidate member of Beta Aurigae, which would make it a triple (trinary) star system. It may be the source of the X-ray emission from the vicinity. The Beta Aurigae system is believed to be a stream member of the Ursa Major Moving Group.
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