Alcor B

Alcor B is a red dwarf stellar companion to the bright star Alcor in the Ursa Major constellation. The two are components of the Mizar-Alcor stellar sextuple system.

Alcor B was discovered independently by two groups in 2009—a group led by Eric Mamajek[1][2] (University of Rochester) and colleagues at Steward Observatory University of Arizona that used the 6.5-meter telescope at MMT Observatory, and another led by Neil Zimmerman, a graduate student at Columbia University and member of Project 1640, an international collaborative team that includes astrophysicists at the American Museum of Natural History, the University of Cambridge's Institute of Astronomy, the California Institute of Technology, and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, that used the 5-meter Hale telescope at Palomar Observatory.[3][4] The companion star was unofficially nicknamed "Eleonora" by the former group.[5] Alcor A and B are situated 1.2 light years away from, and are co-moving with, the Mizar quadruple system, making the system the second known stellar sextuplet—only Castor (star) is closer.[6] The Mizar-Alcor stellar sextuple system belongs to the Ursa Major Moving Group, a nearby stellar group of stars of similar ages and velocities.

See also

References

  1. ^ First Known Binary Star is Discovered to be a Triplet, Quadruplet, Quintuplet, Sextuplet System, Science Daily, December 10, 2009
  2. ^ Discovery of a Faint Companion to Alcor Using MMT/AO 5 $\mu$m Imaging, 2009, arxiv preprint 0911.5028
  3. ^ Faint Star Orbiting the Big Dipper's Alcor Discovered, Science Daily, December 10, 2009
  4. ^ Parallactic Motion for Companion Discovery: An M-Dwarf Orbiting Alcor, 2009, arxiv preprint 0912.1597
  5. ^ Eric Mamajek's home page
  6. ^ Two Big Dipper constellation stars actually six, USA Today, Dan Vergano, December 11, 2009

this not currently included above(goto-palomar-info@astro.caltech.edu- ) CALTECH ASTRONOMY retrieved 21/09/2011