Beta Coma Berenices (β Comae Berenices / β Com) is a
main sequenceThe main sequence is a continuous and distinctive band of stars that appear on plots of stellar color versus brightness. These color-magnitude plots are known as Hertzsprung-Russell diagrams after their co-developers, Ejnar Hertzsprung and Henry Norris Russell...
dwarf
starA star is a massive, luminous ball of plasma that is held together by gravity. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun, which is the source of most of the energy on Earth. Other stars are visible in the night sky, when they are not outshone by the Sun...
in the
constellationIn modern astronomy, a constellation is an area of the celestial sphere, defined by exact boundaries.The term "constellation" can also be used loosely to refer to just the more prominent visible stars that seem to form a pattern in that area.-Definitions:...
of
Coma BerenicesComa Berenices is a traditional asterism that has since been defined as one of the 88 modern constellations. It is located near Leo, to which it formerly belonged and accommodates the North Galactic Pole...
. The Greek letter
betaBeta is the second letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 2. It was derived from the Phoenician letter Beth . Letters that arose from Beta include the Roman B and the Cyrillic letters Б and В...
(β) usually indicates that the star has the second highest
visual magnitudeThe apparent magnitude of a celestial body is a measure of its brightness as seen by an observer on Earth, normalized to the value it would have in the absence of the atmosphere...
in the constellation. In actuality, however, it is slightly brighter than
α Comae BerenicesAlpha Comae Berenices is a star in the constellation Coma Berenices . Although it has the Bayer designation "alpha", at magnitude 4.32 it is actually fainter than Beta Comae Berenices. It has the traditional name Diadem...
.
This star is similar to our own
SunThe Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. The Earth and other matter orbit the Sun, which by itself accounts for about 99.86% of the Solar System's mass....
, being only slightly larger and brighter in
absolute magnitudeIn astronomy, absolute magnitude measures a celestial object's intrinsic brightness. To derive the absolute magnitude from the observed apparent magnitude of a celestial object its value is corrected for distance to the observer...
. The surface of this star has a measured activity cycle of 16.6 years (compared to 11 years on our Sun.) It may also have a secondary activity cycle of 9.6 years.
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Beta Coma Berenices (β Comae Berenices / β Com) is a
main sequenceThe main sequence is a continuous and distinctive band of stars that appear on plots of stellar color versus brightness. These color-magnitude plots are known as Hertzsprung-Russell diagrams after their co-developers, Ejnar Hertzsprung and Henry Norris Russell...
dwarf
starA star is a massive, luminous ball of plasma that is held together by gravity. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun, which is the source of most of the energy on Earth. Other stars are visible in the night sky, when they are not outshone by the Sun...
in the
constellationIn modern astronomy, a constellation is an area of the celestial sphere, defined by exact boundaries.The term "constellation" can also be used loosely to refer to just the more prominent visible stars that seem to form a pattern in that area.-Definitions:...
of
Coma BerenicesComa Berenices is a traditional asterism that has since been defined as one of the 88 modern constellations. It is located near Leo, to which it formerly belonged and accommodates the North Galactic Pole...
. The Greek letter
betaBeta is the second letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 2. It was derived from the Phoenician letter Beth . Letters that arose from Beta include the Roman B and the Cyrillic letters Б and В...
(β) usually indicates that the star has the second highest
visual magnitudeThe apparent magnitude of a celestial body is a measure of its brightness as seen by an observer on Earth, normalized to the value it would have in the absence of the atmosphere...
in the constellation. In actuality, however, it is slightly brighter than
α Comae BerenicesAlpha Comae Berenices is a star in the constellation Coma Berenices . Although it has the Bayer designation "alpha", at magnitude 4.32 it is actually fainter than Beta Comae Berenices. It has the traditional name Diadem...
.
This star is similar to our own
SunThe Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. The Earth and other matter orbit the Sun, which by itself accounts for about 99.86% of the Solar System's mass....
, being only slightly larger and brighter in
absolute magnitudeIn astronomy, absolute magnitude measures a celestial object's intrinsic brightness. To derive the absolute magnitude from the observed apparent magnitude of a celestial object its value is corrected for distance to the observer...
. The surface of this star has a measured activity cycle of 16.6 years (compared to 11 years on our Sun.) It may also have a secondary activity cycle of 9.6 years. At one time it was thought that this star may have a spectroscopic companion. However this was ruled out by means of more accurate radial velocity measurements. No
planetA planet , is a celestial body orbiting a star or stellar remnant that is massive enough to be rounded by its own gravity, is not massive enough to cause thermonuclear fusion, and has cleared its neighbouring region of planetesimals.The term planet is ancient, with ties to history, science,...
s have yet been detected around this star, and there is no evidence of a
dusty diskA circumstellar disk is a torus, pancake or ring-shaped accumulation of matter composed of gas, dust, planetesimals, asteroids or collision fragments in orbit around a star. Around the youngest stars, they are the reservoirs of material out of which planets may form...
.