Phoenix (constellation) - Notable Features

Notable Features

A curved line of stars comprising Alpha, Kappa, Mu, Beta, Nu and Gamma Phoenicis were seen as a boat by the ancient Arabs. Alpha, also known by the traditional names of Ankaa and Nair Al Zaurak is the brightest star in the constellation. It is an orange giant of apparent visual magnitude 2.37 and spectral type K0.5IIIb, 77 light years distant from earth, orbited by a secondary object about which little is known. Lying close by Ankaa is Kappa Phoenicis, a main sequence star of spectral type A5IVn and apparent magnitude 3.90.

Located centrally in the asterism, Beta Phoenicis is the second brightest star in the constellation and another binary star. Together the stars, both yellow giants of spectral type G8, shine with an apparent magnitude of 3.31, though the components are of individual apparent magnitudes of 4.0 and 4.1 and orbit each other every 168 years. Zeta Phoenicis is an Algol-type eclipsing binary star and its apparent magnitude fluctuates between 3.9 and 4.4 with a period of 1.66977 days. Zeta Phoenicis is a four-star system: it has two other telescopic components with an apparent magnitude of 7.2 and 8.2 at a distance of 0.8 and 6.4 arcseconds from the main star.

Gamma Phoenicis is a red giant of spectral type M0IIIa and varies between magnitudes 3.39 and 3.49. It lies 235 light years away. Rho Phoenicis is a Delta Scuti variable star of average apparent magnitude 5.23 and of spectral type F2III. Located 6.5 degrees west of Ankaa is SX Phoenicis, a variable star which ranges from magnitude 7.1 to 7.5 over a period of a mere 79 minutes. Its spectral type varies between A2 and F4. It gives its name to a group of stars known as SX Phoenicis variables.

Delta Phoenicis, also known as LTT 827, is a high proper motion star of spectral type G9III and apparent magnitude 3.95.

Nu Phoenicis is a yellow-white main sequence star of spectral type F8 V 49 light years distant. It has likely to be surrounded by a disk of dust.

HD 142 is a yellow giant has an apparent magnitude of 5.7, and has a planet (HD 142 b)1.36 times the mass of Jupiter which orbits every 328 days. HD 2039 is a yellow subgiant with an apparent magnitude of 9.0 around 330 light years away which has a planet (HD 2039 b) triple the mass of Jupiter. WASP-18 is a star of magnitude 9.29 which was discovered to have a hot jupiter-like planet (WASP-18b) taking less than a day to orbit the star.

WISE J003231.09-494651.4 and WISE J001505.87-461517.6 are two brown dwarves discovered by the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, and are 63 and 49 light years away respectively.

Gliese 915 is a white dwarf only 26 light years away. It is of magnitude 13.05, too faint to be seen with the naked eye.

HLX-1 is an intermediate-mass black hole located near the galaxy ESO 243-49. It is thought to be a galactic remnant of a dwarf galaxy that was absorbed in a galactic collision with ESO 243-49.

The constellation does not lie on the Milky Way, and there are no prominent star clusters or galaxies. Robert's Quartet (composed of the irregular galaxy NGC 87, and three spiral galaxies NGC 88, NGC 89 and NGC 92) is a group of four galaxies located around 160 million light-years away which are in the process of colliding and merging. They are within a circle of radius of 1.6 arcmin, corresponding to about 75,000 light-years. NGC 37 is a lenticular galaxy of apparent magnitude 14.66. It is approximately 42 kiloparsecs (137,000 light-years) in diameter and about 12.9 billion years old. Lying within the bounds of the constellation is the gigantic Phoenix galaxy cluster, which is around 7.3 million light years wide and lies 5.7 billion light years away, making it one of the most massive galaxy clusters. It was first discovered in 2010, and the central galaxy is producing an estimated 740 new stars a year.

Phoenix is associated with the minor Phoenicids meteor shower of December 5.