109 Virginis Star Facts (Distance, Colour & more)

109 Virginis is a Subgiant Star that is located in the constellation of Virgo. Based on the spectral type (Ap (A0 IVnn SiII)) of the star, the 109 Virginis colour is blue - white . It is a main star in the constellation Virgo and makes up the constellation outline.

The star can be seen with the naked eye, that is, you don't need a telescope/binoculars to see it.

109 Virginis is located in the Milky Way galaxy, this is the galaxy that you reside in. In case you're wondering, 109 Virginis is not located within the Solar System, there is only one star in the Solar System and that is the Sun.

There are no known exoplanets in orbit round the star, there might or might not be any but due to their size compared to the star, they'll be very hard to spot compared to other smaller stars hence why none have been spotted around a supergiant.

No one has visited 109 Virginis and we have no probes on a rendezvous with the star.

Using the most recent figures given by the 2007 Hipparcos data, 109 Virginis distance from Earth is 134.50 light years. When you look at 109 Virginis, you are in fact looking back in time, you are seeing how it looks years ago. Roughly, change the distance from light years to years, that will tell you how long ago we are looking at the star.

109 Virginis Location

The location of the subgiant star in the night sky is determined by the Right Ascension (R.A.) and Declination (Dec.), these are equivalent to the Longitude and Latitude on the Earth. The Right Ascension is how far expressed in time (hh:mm:ss) the star is along the celestial equator. If the R.A. is positive then its eastwards. The Declination is how far north or south the object is compared to the celestial equator and is expressed in degrees. For 109 Virginis, the location is 14h 46m 14.99 and +01° 53` 34.6 .

109 Virginis Radial Velocity and Proper Motion

109 Virginis Proper Motion

All stars like planets orbit round a central spot, in the case of planets, its the central star such as the Sun. In the case of a star, its the galactic centre. The constellations that we see today will be different than they were 50,000 years ago or 50,000 years from now. Proper Motion details the movements of these stars and are measured in milliarcseconds. The star is moving -22.13 ± 0.11 milliarcseconds/year towards the north and -114.03 ± 0.18 milliarcseconds/year east if we saw them in the horizon.

109 Virginis Radial Velocity

The Radial Velocity, that is the speed at which the star is towards the Sun is -6.10000 km/s with an error of about 2.70 km/s . When the value is negative then the star and the Sun are getting closer to one another, likewise, a positive number means that two stars are moving away. Its nothing to fear as the stars are so far apart, they won't collide in our life-time, if ever.

109 Virginis Physical Properties

109 Virginis Colour

Based on the star's spectral type of Ap (A0 IVnn SiII) , 109 Virginis's colour and type is blue - white subgiant star.

There is no relationship between colour and size, a red star can be both the largest and the smallest stars in the Universe. Small stars are more energy efficient than larger stars and live longer.

109 Virginis Temperature

Based on the spectral type as we don't have the exact temperature', we can deduce that the surface temperature of the star is in the order of 7,500 and 10,000K based on the notes from Harvard University. To put this in context, the temperature of our Sun is about 5,778 Kelvin as said by Google.

• Blue (O) > 25,000K
• Blue/White (B) = 10,000 - 25,000K
• Blue/White (A) = 7,500 - 10,000K
• Yellow/White (F) = 6,000 - 7,500K
• Yellow (G) = 5,000 - 6,000K
• Orange/Red (K) = 3,500 - 5000K
• Red (M) = < 3,500K
• Red (C) = < 3,500K

There is a relationship between colour and temperature, stars that are closer to red in the rainbow spectrum are cooler whereas those closer to blue are hotter. Those that are blue stars are normally identified as being young stars whereas redder stars are usually older stars, ones that are at the end of their life. An example of when its a Blue Straggler, the star has stolen matter from a nearby star and grown to appear youthful when its not. These stars are found mainly in Star Clusters.

109 Virginis Luminosity

Luminosity is the amount of energy that a star pumps out and its relative to the amount that our star, the Sun gives out. Our star, the Sun's value is 1. ' The figure of 55.48 that I have given is based on the value in the Simbad Hipparcos Extended Catalogue at the University of Strasbourg from 2012. The star generates more energy than our star.

109 Virginis Radius

109 Virginis estimated radius has been calculated as being 2.424 times bigger than the Sun. The Sun's radius is 695,800km, therefore the star's radius is an estimated 1,686,955.117.km. If you need the diameter of the star, you just need to multiple the radius by 2. However with the 2007 release of updated Hipparcos files, the radius is now calculated at being round 2.539. The figure is derived at by using the formula from SDSS rather than peer reviewed papers. It has been known to produce widely incorrect figures.

109 Virginis Iron Abundance

109 Virginis Iron Abundance is -0.41 with an error value of 9.99 Fe/H with the Sun has a value of 1 to put it into context. The value comes from the Hipparcos Extended Catalog.

109 Virginis Apparent (Brightness) and Absolute Magnitudes

Absolute Magnitude is the apparent magnitude of the star from a distance of 10 parsecs or 32.6 light years. This assumes that there is nothing in between the object and the viewer such as dust clouds. To really compare the brightness of the star, it is best to use Absolute rather than Apparent Magnitude.

Magnitude, whether it be apparent/visual or absolute magnitude is measured by a number, the smaller the number, the brighter the Star is. Our own Sun is the brightest star and therefore has the lowest of all magnitudes, -26.74. A faint star will have a high number.

109 Virginis apparent magnitude is 3.73, this is a measure of the brightness of the star as seen from Earth. Apparent Magnitude is also known as Visual Magnitude. If you used the 1997 Parallax value, 109 Virginis absolute magnitude is 0.75 If you used the 2007 Parallax value, 109 Virginis absolute magnitude is 0.65.

Visible from Earth

109 Virginis is visible from Earth. The lower the Apparent Magnitude of a star or other object is, the easier it is to see in the night sky. An object with a magnitude greater than 6.5 can not be seen without the aid of a telescope or other device.

109 Virginis Distance from Earth

Using the original Hipparcos data that was released in 1997, the parallax to the star was given as 25.35000 which means 109 Virginis distance from Earth is 128.66 light years away from Earth or 39.45 parsecs. If you want that in miles, it is about 756,343,940,513,803.263, based on 1 Ly = 5,878,625,373,183.61 miles.

In 2007, Hipparcos data was revised with a new parallax of 24.25000 which puts 109 Virginis distance from Earth as 134.50 light years or 41.24 parsecs. It should not be taken as though the star is moving closer or further away from Earth. It is purely that the distance was recalculated.

Using the 2007 distance, the star is roughly 8,506,301.337 Astronomical Units from the Earth/Sun give or take a few. An Astronomical Unit is the distance between Earth and the Sun. The number of A.U. is the number of times that the star is from the Earth compared to the Sun. The star's Galacto-Centric Distance is 7,375 Parsecs or 24,054.547 Light Years. The Galacto-Centric Distance is the distance from the star to the Centre of the Galaxy which is Sagittarius A*.

Alternative Names and Meanings

• The Id of the star in the Yale Bright Star Catalogue is HR5511.
• HIP72220 is the reference name for the star in the Hipparcos Star Catalogue.
• The Id of the star in the Henry Draper catalogue is HD130109. The catalogue was started by the American doctor and has been expanded on over the years.
• The star is catalogued in the Tycho-2 star catalogue as TYC-326-1426-1. The catalogue lists 2 millions stars and its homepage is E.S.A.
• Flamsteed designations such as 109 Virginis (109 Vir) are named after the creator, Sir John Flamsteed. Sir John named the stars in the constellation with a number and its latin name, this star's Flamsteed designation is 109 Virginis. The Flamsteed name can be shortened to 109 Vir.
• The Gould star designation is one that was designed by American astronomer, Benjamin Apthorp Gould. Gould stars are predominantly in the Southern and Equatorial constellations but do appear in northern constellations such as Bootes and Orion. There are no stars with a Gould designation in Ursa Major for example.
• BD number is the number that the star was filed under in the Durchmusterung or Bonner Durchmusterung, a star catalogue that was put together by the Bonn Observatory between 1859 to 1903. The star's BD Number is BD +02 2862.

109 Virginis Travel Time

The time it will take to travel to this star is dependent on how fast you are going. U.G. has done some calculations as to how long it will take going at differing speeds. A note about the calculations, when I'm talking about years, I'm talking non-leap years only (365 days).

The New Horizons space probe is the fastest probe that we've sent into space at the time of writing. Its primary mission was to visit Pluto which at the time of launch (2006), Pluto was still a planet.

Mach 1 is the speed of sound, Mach 2 is twice the speed of sound. Corncorde before it was retired was the fastest commercial airline across the Atlantic and only one that could do Mach 2.

Description	Speed (m.p.h.)	Time (years)
Walking	4	22,549,484,150.125
Car	120	751,649,471.671
Airbus A380	736	122,551,544.294
Mach 1	767.269	117,557,123.513
Mach 2	1,534.54	58,778,485.149
New Horizons	33,000	2,733,270.806
Speed of Light	670,616,629	134.5

Source of Information

The source of the information if it has a Hip I.D. is from Simbad, the Hipparcos data library based at the University at Strasbourg, France. Hipparcos was a E.S.A. satellite operation launched in 1989 for four years. The items in red are values that I've calculated so they could well be wrong. Information regarding Metallicity and/or Mass is from the E.U. Exoplanets. The information was obtained as of 12th Feb 2017.

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