What constellation is Altair?

Aquila, one of the constellations around the ecliptic, is located in the south of Lyra and the north of Sagittarius, mostly in the Milky Way. There are 87 stars in the constellation whose visual magnitude is brighter than 6, of which 13 is brighter than 4.

The ancient Greeks imagined it as an eagle flying in the night sky, and Altair was the heart of the eagle. Cowherd's shoulder pole is the wing of skyhawk. It is a very famous bright star in the sky in summer and autumn, and it is silvery white.

In the ancient legend of China, when we watch it at night, the Altair shines like a jewel. In fact, its surface temperature is higher than that of the sun. Altair is the brightest star in Aquila, which can be clearly seen by naked eyes in the night sky in the northern hemisphere.

Altair analysis

Altair is the main sequence star in the spectrum of type A stars. Its mass is 1.7 times that of the sun, its diameter is 1.8 times that of the sun, its brightness is 10.6 times that of the sun, and its surface temperature is about 7000 degrees Celsius.

Altair and Sirius have many similarities. They are very young stars (the formation time may be only a few hundred million years), and their cores are all made of helium produced by the nuclear fusion reaction of hydrogen.

Such a star, when its lifetime reaches about 3.5 billion years, shrinks inward due to the exhaustion of hydrogen raw materials, forming a red giant and eventually evolving into a white dwarf. The rotation speed of Hegu is very high (286 kilometers per second, and it takes 8.9 hours to rotate once), so it is an ellipsoid in appearance. Its equatorial diameter is 1. 14 times the diameter of the poles.

According to scientists' speculation, if there is a terrestrial planet 3.4 astronomical units away from the main star of Altair, then there is likely to be liquid water on the planet.

However, considering that galaxies are still very young, such terrestrial planets will be in constant collision with meteorites and meteors, just like the earth 654.38 billion years ago. Even if there is life, only primitive single-celled organisms and bacteria can survive.

The above contents should be combined with the actual situation for reference only.