Alpha Gruis
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Alpha Gruis is the brightest star in the southern constellation of Grus. It is officially named Alnair;<ref name=Kunitzsch/> Alpha Gruis is the star's Bayer designation, which is Latinized from α Gruis and abbreviated α Gru. With an magnitude of 1.74, it is one of the brightest stars in the sky and one of the fifty-eight stars selected for celestial navigation. Alpha Gruis is a single, B-type main-sequence star located at a distance of Template:Val.
NomenclatureEdit
α Gruis (Latinised to Alpha Gruis) is the star's Bayer designation. (Its first depiction in a celestial atlas was in Johann Bayer's Uranometria of 1603.<ref name=scalzi2008/>)
It bore the traditional name Alnair or Al Nair (sometimes Al Na'ir in lists of stars used by navigators),<ref name="Bowditch"/> from the Arabic al-nayyir "the bright one", itself derived from its Arabic name, al-nayyir min dhanab al-ḥūt (al-janūbiyy), "the bright one from the (southern) fish's tail" (see Aldhanab).<ref name=kunitzsch_smart2006/> Confusingly, Alnair was also given as the proper name for Zeta Centauri in an astronomical ephemerides in the middle of the 20th century.<ref name=kunitzsch1959/> In 2016, the International Astronomical Union organized a Working Group on Star Names (WGSN)<ref name="WGSN"/> to catalog and standardize proper names for stars. The WGSN approved the name Alnair for this star on 21 August 2016 and it is now so entered in the IAU Catalog of Star Names.<ref name="IAU-CSN"/>
Along with Beta Gruis, Delta Gruis, Theta Gruis, Iota Gruis, and Lambda Gruis, Alpha Gruis belonged to Piscis Austrinus in traditional Arabic astronomy.<ref name=allen1963/>
In Chinese, {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}}), meaning Crane, refers to an asterism consisting of Alpha Gruis, Beta Gruis, Delta2 Gruis, Epsilon Gruis, Zeta Gruis, Eta Gruis, Iota Gruis, Theta Gruis, Mu1 Gruis and Delta Tucanae.<ref name=zh/> Consequently, Alpha Gruis itself is known as {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} ({{#invoke:Lang|lang}}, Template:Langx).<ref name=lcsd/> The Chinese name gave rise to another English name, Ke.<ref name=allen/>
PropertiesEdit
Alpha Gruis has a stellar classification of B6 V,<ref name=aj132_1_161/> although some sources give it a classification of B7 IV.<ref name=mnras389_2_869/> The first classification indicates that this is a B-type star on the main sequence of stars that are generating energy through the thermonuclear fusion of hydrogen at the core. However, a luminosity class of 'IV' would suggest that this is a subgiant star; meaning the supply of hydrogen at its core is becoming exhausted and the star has started the process of evolving away from the main sequence. It has no known companions.<ref name=mnras389_2_869/>
The measured angular diameter of this star, after correcting for limb darkening, is Template:Nowrap.<ref name=aj143_6/> At the Alnair's distance from Earth of Template:Convert from Earth, this yields a physical size of Template:Solar radius calculator times the radius of the Sun.Template:Efn It is rotating rapidly, with a projected rotational velocity of about 215 km/s providing a lower bound for the rate of azimuthal rotation along the equator.<ref name=aaass43_427/> This star has around four times the Sun's mass<ref name=david/> and is radiating roughly 520 times the luminosity of the Sun.<ref name=aj143_6/>
The effective temperature of Alnair's outer envelope is 14,245 K,<ref name=david/> giving it the blue-white hue characteristic of B-type stars.<ref name=csiro/> The abundance of elements other than hydrogen and helium, what astronomers term the metallicity, is about 74% of the abundance in the Sun.<ref name=aaa404_689/>
Based on the estimated age and motion, it is a member of the AB Doradus moving group that share a common motion through space.<ref name=bell/> This group has an age of about 70 million years,<ref name=apj732_2_61/> which is consistent with α Gruis's 100-million-year<ref name=apj653_1_675/> estimated age (allowing for a margin of error). The space velocity components of this star in the Galactic coordinate system are [U, V, W] = Template:Nowrap, Template:Nowrap, Template:Nowrap.<ref name=apj732_2_61/>