| |
| |
Nu Octantis (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-05) |
 | | Way down the Greek letter list, Nu Oct oddly beats out the next star down, fifth magnitude (4.15) Beta Oct, while the Alpha star, usually a constellation's brightest, is a full magnitude (5.15) fainter yet. |
 | | Consistently, Nu Oct is relatively small, its remarkably low radius of 6.3 times solar hardly befitting a star called a "giant." The reasons involve mass and evolutionary status. |
 | | But in Nu Octantis's case, we probably need not worry about what is going to happen to its planets, as the star has a binary companion close enough to it to make a planetary system unlikely (though given the odd planetary systems astronomers are finding, who knows?). |
| www.astro.uiuc.edu /~kaler/sow/nuoct.html (457 words) |
|