RIGEL

By: Leonard Pettus

Arabic for "foot" One of the galaxy's brightest stars. Brilliant bluish-white Supergiant 775 light years away 70 times the sun's diameter 40,000 times the sun's luminosity Brightest star in Orion (Star Map) December through March from Northern middle latitudes

Description

Constellation: Orion

Interesting Facts We could not live as close to Rigel as we live to our sun, because Rigel is

nearly twice as hot and about 40,000 times brighter than our local star. Rigel is a very bright star and very close to the Earth. This means that this

triple star system is one of the brightest things in the sky.

For Your INFO Rigel is the brightest star in the constellation Orion, taking the

position of the hunter's left foot. It outshines the other named star in the constellation.

10 million year lifetime, Rigel has been fusing hydrogen into helium at its core. Eventually Rigel will start to contract, and the helium core will get hot enough to start fusing. This helium flash will make the star swell up even bigger, turning it into a red supergiant.

FACTS Elements in Rigel's core like carbon and neon will form until it finally

explodes as a supernova. It was thought that Rigel had a mass of 17 solar masses it was made

possible that Rigel actually has a lower mass of around 14 solar masses. This would mean that the star is already fusing helium after already having

been a red giant, and has shrunken down and heated its surface to return to its blue supergiant phase.

Witch Nebula

Compared to Other Stars

Rigel by far is one of the brightest stars in the universe.

Also in the movie Star Trek they included the Rigel Star which is a very popular movie.

The End

Stars

http://space.about.com/od/stars/p/rigelinfo.htm

http://www.brighthub.com/science/space/articles/78447.aspx

Work Cited