Talk:Antares

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[edit] Classification

Antares is a class M class M stars are red dwarfs, Anares is a Giant I'm not sure of its classification but it would be "B" or "A" I would think.(Zach Kessin

[edit] Diameter

Antares is a class M supergiant star, with a diameter of approximately 9.24 × 10^8 km, or slightly more than the distance from the Sun to Mars,

Those two things contradict themselves. -- Keber 16:02, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

You are correct, Mars is "only" 1.52 AU (give or take) = 2.3 X10^8 km, I believe it should say Jupiter (at 7.8 X10^8km)--Kalsermar 16:41, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
But the passage mentions that the diameter is 9 x 10^8 km (~6 AU). An Antares placed where the Sun is would not stretch out as far as Jupieter's orbit, but only about 3 AU. Well beyond the orbit of Mars at ~1.5 AU, but not as far as Jupiter, at ~5.2 AU. 3 AU would be somewhere in the asteroid belt. Richard B 20:25, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
Now the article states Antares diameter is 1.33 × 109 km which means in place of our sun it would extend out half that or to 6.7 x 108 km. Could someone with a source provide a fact check and cite it? WilliamKF 01:25, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
According to APOD (I know, not the best source for scientific data but it is what I found doing a quick search) Antares is about 700 times the solar diameter. That would make it roughly 9.8 x 108 km.--Kalsermar 16:49, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
Antares has a measured parallax of 5.4 mas (milliarcseconds), so the distance is 1000/5.4 = 185 parsec. Furthermore, the CHARM2 database (CHARM2: an updated Catalog of High Angular Resolution Measurements. Richichi A., Percheron I., Khristoforova M. <Astron. Astrophys. 431, 773 (2005)>) lists a measured angular disk diameter of 45 mas. Thus the diameter is 45*185/1000 =8.3 AU (astronomical units; note that one arcsec at one parsec is one AU). 8.3 AU correspond to 1780 solar radii, so the radius of the star would be 1780/2 = 890 solar radii. Of course it could easily be 200 solar radii more or less, given the observational errors.

[edit] External Link Removed

I thought my external link to http://www.rense.com/general72/size.htm The Size of our World on rense.com was a good one. It is a powerful visual comparison of the size of Antares to earth, sun, and other stars. Does everyone agree with Kalsermar that it should be removed?Bytemiser 03:38, 4 July 2006 (UTC)Bytemiser

I vote for INCLUDING the external link as it is a great pictoral. WilliamKF 01:17, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
Great pictoral, perhaps. Encyclopaedic, no.--Kalsermar 16:49, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
I fail to see how this is not "encyclopedic". Many articles have size comparisons, such as Image:Terrestrial planet size comparisons.jpg and Image:Gas giants in the solar system.jpg from solar system. It would be nice if this could be converted into a picture series that could be used on Wikipedia, but, until that time, I see no reason why this should not be included. --tomf688 (talk - email) 10:55, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cleanup

I added a few more references, and cleaned up the subheadings.

[edit] Disk of Antares imaged

It is notable that Antares is one of the few stars whose disk has been photographed (along with the sun, of course, and Betelgeuse and I think Myra). I'm not sure how to work that into the article, but it might be worth a mention.--Todd 08:58, 30 May 2007 (UTC)