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Rigel
(redirected from Rigel B)

   Also found in: Wikipedia, Hutchinson 0.02 sec.
Rigel (rī`jəl), bright star in the constellation Orion Orion, in astronomy, constellation located on the celestial equator. It is one of the most conspicuous and easily recognizable constellations in the entire sky.
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; Bayer designation Beta Orionis; 1992 position R.A. 5h14.2m, Dec. −8°13'. A huge, blue supergiant of spectral class spectral class, in astronomy, a classification of the stars by their spectrum and luminosity . In 1885, E. C. Pickering began the first extensive attempt to classify the stars spectroscopically.
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 B8 Ia, Rigel has an intrinsic brightness about 40,000 times as luminous as that of the sun. It is an irregular variable star variable star, star that varies, either periodically or irregularly, in the intensity of the light it emits. Other physical changes are usually correlated with the fluctuations in brightness, such as pulsations in size, ejection of matter, and changes in spectral
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, with apparent magnitude magnitude, in astronomy, measure of the brightness of a star or other celestial object. The stars cataloged by Ptolemy (2d cent. A.D.), all visible with the unaided eye, were ranked on a brightness scale such that the brightest stars were of 1st magnitude and the
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 ranging from 0.08 to 0.20, making it normally the seventh-brightest star in the sky. Its distance from the earth is nearly 1,000 light-years. Rigel is actually a four-star system consisting of a visual binary star binary star or binary system, pair of stars that are held together by their mutual gravitational attraction and revolve about their common center of mass.
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, each component of which is itself a spectroscopic binary. Its name is from the Arabic word meaning "foot," indicating its position in the constellation.
Rigel [rī·jəl]
(astronomy)
A multiple star of stellar magnitude 0.08, 650 light-years from the sun, spectral classification B8-Ia, in the constellation Orion; the star β Orionis.

Rigel - A database language? Based on Pascal. Listed by M.P. Atkinson & J.W. Schmidt in a tutorial presented in Zurich, 1989.


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