REGULUS

BY: Emily Newcomb

                                                                                                                        

What’s the Meaning of Regulus???

“The Little King”

Type of Star

Regulus is a blue-white main sequence star.

It is about 350 times brighter than the Sun. Regulus is actually the brightest star in the constellation Leo the Lion!

Regulus is the 21st brightest star in the night sky! The absolute magnitude is of this star is -0.52 and the apparent magnitude of it is

1.41.

Magnitude

Regulus is best seen in the night sky from the months February through June. It will rise

after sunset in mid February and can be seen throughout the year except in August.

When it can be Seen

Rotation

Regulus got its bullet shape from spinning rapidly on its axis. If it

were to spin slightly faster (16%) it would fly apart! Regulus rotates

about 700,000 mile per hour!

WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF REGULUS REPLACED OUR SUN?

“If Regulus replaced our Sun we would be doomed.” We would no longer have and atmosphere and the Earth’s ocean would start to boil! The Earth would literally bake under the star’s heat!

Temperature

Regulus is a very hot star. The temperature on the surface of Regulus

is about 12,000K. It is much hotter than our Sun!

Regulus has a

mass of 3.4M

and a radius of

3.5R

Age

Regulus’s full life span is about 100 million years (not a very long time). After it starts to

cool down is will become a supergiant and might explode and cause a supernova or a

neutron star.

Life Span Regulus

Regulus is 77-light years away!

Regulus

Regulus is actually a double star. It is about “100 times as far from

Regulus as Pluto is from the Sun”

Double Star-”a set of two or more stars that appear next to each other”

• http://earthsky.org/brightest-stars/best-regulus-the-heart-of-the-lion

• http://www.windows2universe.org/the_universe/regulus.html

• http://library.thinkquest.org/27930/stars.htm• http://www.eaglecreekobservatory.org/eco/d

oubles/• http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/R/

Regulus.html

Works Cited