Aljanah is the star on the eastern wing of Cygnus, an orange star well past its prime whose Arabic name means simply the wing.
At a glance
| type | orange star (class K) |
|---|---|
| distance from the Sun | 72.7 light-years (22.3 pc) |
| its light left it | 72.7 years ago |
| luminosity | 55.8 × the Sun |
| radius | 9.38 × the Sun |
| surface temperature | 5,150 K |
| constellation | Cygnus (Swan) |
Read off the piece’s own catalogue, the same values it draws with.
About Aljanah
The card lists an orange star of class K, a little cooler than the Sun but many times wider and far brighter overall. Those figures mark a star that has left the main sequence and become a giant, burning helium or about to.
Aljanah is Epsilon Cygni. Its name, from the Arabic al-janāḥ, “the wing”, was formally adopted by the IAU in recent years. It balances Fawaris on the opposite arm of the Northern Cross, with Sadr between them at the centre.
What you see in the piece
From Earth the two wings of the swan look evenly matched. In the piece Aljanah is one of the nearest stars of the figure, while Sadr and Deneb lie far behind it in the Milky Way.
Questions
How far away is Aljanah?
Aljanah is 72.7 light-years (22.3 pc) from the Sun, so its light left it 72.7 years ago.