Menkalinan (Beta Aurigae)
Menkalinan (Beta Aurigae) is a star in the constellation Auriga, magnitude 1.9.
Two white stars that eclipse each other every two days — and a future brightest star in the sky.
Menkalinan looks like one star but is two: a pair of white A-type stars, both hotter and brighter than the Sun, circling each other every four days. Their orbit is tilted so that every 47.5 hours one partly hides the other, and the light dips — but only by a few hundredths of a magnitude. Both are ‘metallic-line’ stars, whose odd spectra make them look like ageing subgiants, though both are still in the prime of life.
The pair is heading our way. Menkalinan and the Sun are closing in on each other as they orbit the galaxy, and in about a million years it should become the brightest star in our night sky.
Its name comes from the Arabic for ‘shoulder of the rein-holder’ — the Charioteer’s shoulder. Like most stars of the Plough, it is thought to belong to the Ursa Major moving group, a family of stars sharing one path through space.
Menkalinan (Beta Aurigae) is 81 light-years away: the light we see from it set off in 1945, 12 years before Sputnik became the first artificial satellite.
Did you know?
- The second binary of its kind. In 1889 Antonia Maury, one of Harvard Observatory’s women ‘computers’, noticed Menkalinan’s spectral lines doubling and merging. It was only the second spectroscopic binary ever found, after Mizar.
- Five Chariots. In traditional Chinese astronomy Menkalinan is the third star of the Five Chariots, a pattern it shares with Capella and Elnath.
A bright white star marking the Charioteer’s shoulder, the second-brightest in Auriga. Compare its pure white with Capella’s golden yellow, a short way to the west.
When and where to see it
It is best placed in the evening sky around January, when it crosses the meridian at about 10 pm local time (around midnight in December). It can be seen from everywhere north of 45°S and never sets north of 45°N.
At its highest it stands 85° up from 50°N, 80° up from 35°N, 45° up from the equator, 10° up from 35°S.
Facts
- Type
- Star
- Constellation
- Auriga
- Designations
- Beta Aurigae, β Aur, 34 Aur, HR 2088, HD 40183, HIP 28360
- Magnitude
- 1.9
- Position
- RA 5h 59.5m, Dec +44° 57′ (J2000)
- Spectral type
- A1IV-Vp
- Colour
- white (B−V 0.03)
- Distance
- 81 light-years
- Discovered
- Known since antiquity
Open AstroPilot to see when Menkalinan (Beta Aurigae) is highest tonight from your location, how easy it is with your telescope or binoculars, and an eyepiece view.