Alpha Lyncis (α Lyn, α Lyncis) is the brightest

star A star is an astronomical object comprising a luminous spheroid of plasma held together by its gravity. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Many other stars are visible to the naked eye at night, but their immense distances from Earth make ...

in the northern constellation of

Lynx A lynx is a type of wild cat. Lynx may also refer to: Astronomy * Lynx (constellation) * Lynx (Chinese astronomy) * Lynx X-ray Observatory, a NASA-funded mission concept for a next-generation X-ray space observatory Places Canada * Lynx, Ontar ...

with an apparent magnitude of +3.13. Unusually, it is the only star in the constellation that has a

Bayer designation A Bayer designation is a stellar designation in which a specific star is identified by a Greek or Latin letter followed by the genitive form of its parent constellation's Latin name. The original list of Bayer designations contained 1,564 stars. T ...

. Based upon

parallax Parallax is a displacement or difference in the apparent position of an object viewed along two different lines of sight and is measured by the angle or semi-angle of inclination between those two lines. Due to foreshortening, nearby object ...

measurements, this star is located about from the Earth. This is a

giant star A giant star is a star with substantially larger radius and luminosity than a main-sequence (or ''dwarf'') star of the same surface temperature.Giant star, entry in ''Astronomy Encyclopedia'', ed. Patrick Moore, New York: Oxford University Press ...

that has exhausted the hydrogen at its core and has evolved away from the

main sequence In astronomy, the main sequence is a continuous and distinctive band of stars that appears on plots of stellar color versus brightness. These color-magnitude plots are known as Hertzsprung–Russell diagrams after their co-developers, Ejnar Her ...

. It has expanded to about 55 times the Sun's radius and it is emitting roughly 673 times the

luminosity of the Sun The solar luminosity (), is a unit of radiant flux ( power emitted in the form of photons) conventionally used by astronomers to measure the luminosity of stars, galaxies and other celestial objects in terms of the output of the Sun. One nomin ...

. The estimated

effective temperature The effective temperature of a body such as a star or planet is the temperature of a black body that would emit the same total amount of electromagnetic radiation. Effective temperature is often used as an estimate of a body's surface temperature ...

of the star's outer envelope is 3,882 K, which is lower than the Sun's effective temperature of 5,778 K, and is giving Alpha Lyncis an orange hue that is characteristic of K-type stars. Alpha Lyncis is a suspected small-amplitude red

variable star A variable star is a star whose brightness as seen from Earth (its apparent magnitude) changes with time. This variation may be caused by a change in emitted light or by something partly blocking the light, so variable stars are classified as e ...

that changes apparent magnitude from +3.17 up to +3.12. This variability pattern typically occurs in stars that have developed an inert carbon core surrounded by a helium- fusing shell, and suggests that Alpha Lyncis is starting to evolve into a Mira-type variable.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Alpha Lyncis Lyncis, Alpha Lynx (constellation) K-type giants Lyncis, 40 045860 080493 Durchmusterung objects 3705 Suspected variables