Aldhanab is a blue-white star in Grus, the crane, its Arabic name meaning the tail, a reminder that these stars once belonged to another figure.
At a glance
| type | blue-white star (class B) |
|---|---|
| distance from the Sun | 211 light-years (64.7 pc) |
| its light left it | 211 years ago |
| luminosity | 424 × the Sun |
| radius | 4.93 × the Sun |
| surface temperature | 11,800 K |
| constellation | Grus (Crane) |
Read off the piece’s own catalogue, the same values it draws with.
About Aldhanab
It is a blue-white star of class B, hotter, larger and far brighter than the Sun. It is Gamma Gruis, a star of the long neck of the crane in the southern sky.
The name, from the Arabic al-dhanab, “the tail”, was formally adopted by the IAU in recent years. Before Grus was drawn by navigators on the southern voyages, Arabic astronomers counted its bright stars as part of the tail of the southern fish, Piscis Austrinus.
What you see in the piece
From mid-northern latitudes Grus barely rises. In the human eye view from the south it hangs below Fomalhaut, and in space its stars lie at very different distances.
Questions
What does Aldhanab mean?
Aldhanab comes from the Arabic for “the tail”, from a time when the stars of Grus were counted as the tail of the southern fish.