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What do we currently know about the star Deneb? I know that it is a huge A star burning 3228 light years away, but that's about it.

Hello PlutonianEmpire,

there's lots of information on Deneb. The classical reference book would be Burnham's celestial handbook (last updated in the seventies, some data might be out of date). Scientifiic data can be found at http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/sim-fid.pl

Deneb has the spectral type A2 Ia and is therefore an evolved supergiant (I posted more about that at your question concerning inhabitable planets)

The spectrum shows emission lines, and Deneb itself is slightly variable. The radius of the star would be about 50 times the solar radius, it's luminosity about 50000 times the solar luminosity.

Are you looking for some special facts?

Carolin

Caro wrote:Hello PlutonianEmpire,

there's lots of information on Deneb. The classical reference book would be Burnham's celestial handbook (last updated in the seventies, some data might be out of date). Scientifiic data can be found at http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/sim-fid.pl

Deneb has the spectral type A2 Ia and is therefore an evolved supergiant (I posted more about that at your question concerning inhabitable planets)

The spectrum shows emission lines, and Deneb itself is slightly variable. The radius of the star would be about 50 times the solar radius, it's luminosity about 50000 times the solar luminosity.

Are you looking for some special facts?

Carolin

Yeah, i'm wondering if that "slightly variable" thing could mean that Deneb may have a companion star?

PlutonianEmpire wrote:Yeah, i'm wondering if that "slightly variable" thing could mean that Deneb may have a companion star?

As far as I know (just looked it up in Burnham's) Deneb has a variable radial velocity with a period of 11.7 days, and the amplitude of the variations in magnitude is 0.05.

But other F- and A-type supergiants show this too, so it's commonly attributed to pulsation or turbulence in the atmosphere of the star. After all, stars at the end of their lifetime do not die quietly...