Alpha Phoenicis
Encyclopedia
Alpha Phoenicis is the brightest star in the constellation
Constellation
In modern astronomy, a constellation is an internationally defined area of the celestial sphere. These areas are grouped around asterisms, patterns formed by prominent stars within apparent proximity to one another on Earth's night sky....

 Phoenix
Phoenix (constellation)
Phoenix is a minor constellation in the southern sky. It is named after the Phoenix, a mythical bird. It is faint: there are only two stars in the whole constellation which are brighter than magnitude 5.0...

. It has the traditional name Ankaa, from the Arabic
Arabic language
Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...

 العنقاء al-‘anqā’ "the phoenix
Phoenix (mythology)
The phoenix or phenix is a mythical sacred firebird that can be found in the mythologies of the Arabian, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, Chinese, Indian and Phoenicians....

". Medieval Arab astronomers formed the constellation of the dhow
Dhow
Dhow is the generic name of a number of traditional sailing vessels with one or more masts with lateen sails used in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean region. Some historians believe the dhow was invented by Arabs but this is disputed by some others. Dhows typically weigh 300 to 500 tons, and have a...

 (small boat) where Phoenix is, so another popular name for the star is Nair al-Zaurak from النائر الزورق an-na’ir az-zawraq "the bright (star) of the skiff". The Latin translation is Cymbae, from lūcida cumbæ. It is a double star of spectral type K0 with a total magnitude of 2.4. It is somewhat outshone by its first magnitude neighbors Achernar
Achernar
Achernar , sometimes spelled Achenar, is the brightest star in the constellation Eridanus and the ninth-brightest star in the night sky. Of the top ten apparent brightest stars —Sirius, Canopus, Alpha Centauri, Arcturus, Vega, Capella, Rigel, Procyon, Achernar and Betelgeuse—Achernar is the hottest...

 (α Eridani) and Fomalhaut
Fomalhaut
Fomalhaut is the brightest star in the constellation Piscis Austrinus and one of the brightest stars in the sky. Fomalhaut can be seen low in the southern sky in the northern hemisphere in fall and early winter evenings. Near latitude 50˚N, it sets around the time Sirius rises, and does not...

 (α Piscis Australis). It is approximately 85 light years from us.

Ankaa is similar to many of the visible stars of the night sky, being an orange giant of relatively average stellar size. It is currently thought to be in the midst of a short but stable helium
Helium
Helium is the chemical element with atomic number 2 and an atomic weight of 4.002602, which is represented by the symbol He. It is a colorless, odorless, tasteless, non-toxic, inert, monatomic gas that heads the noble gas group in the periodic table...

 burning phase of its stellar evolution
Stellar evolution
Stellar evolution is the process by which a star undergoes a sequence of radical changes during its lifetime. Depending on the mass of the star, this lifetime ranges from only a few million years to trillions of years .Stellar evolution is not studied by observing the life of a single...

, although it probably won't be long in astronomical terms before it sheds its outer layers in a planetary nebula
Planetary nebula
A planetary nebula is an emission nebula consisting of an expanding glowing shell of ionized gas ejected during the asymptotic giant branch phase of certain types of stars late in their life...

 and ends its life quietly as a white dwarf
White dwarf
A white dwarf, also called a degenerate dwarf, is a small star composed mostly of electron-degenerate matter. They are very dense; a white dwarf's mass is comparable to that of the Sun and its volume is comparable to that of the Earth. Its faint luminosity comes from the emission of stored...

. Ankaa has a small stellar companion, about which little is known.
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