DISTANCE FROM EARTH: 772.9 light years AGE: 10 million years old LOCATION: Constellation Orion TYPE OF STAR: Blue Supergiant SIZE (DIAMETER): 108,498,000 km LUMINOSITY: 66,000 times the Sun TEMPERATURE: Rigel has a surface temperature of 11,000° Kelvin COLOUR: Blue and white IMAGE OF RIGEL:
DISCOVERERY: Rigel is a known visual binary and was first measured by F. G. W. Struve in 1831. HOW IT WAS NAMED: The name Rigel comes from an Arabic phrase, Rijl Jauzah al Yusrāʽ. It means "the left leg of the Jauzah," according to Richard Hinckley Allen's "Star Names: Their Lore and Meaning." ABSOLUTE AND APPARENT MAGNITUDE: Apparent magnitude: 0.18v Absolute magnitude: -6.69 OTHER INTERESTING INFORMATION:
Rigel is the brightest star in the constellation Orion and the seventh brightest star in the night sky
A diameter 78 times the Sun
Rigel is the most luminous star in our local region of the Milky Way
Rigel is currently moving through a region of nebulosity
LIFE CYCLE OF RIGEL
A stars life cycle is determined by its mass and the larger the mass, the shorter the life cycle. A stars mass is determined by the amount of matter that is available in its nebula, the giant cloud of gas and dust in which it is born. Eventually the temperature reaches 15,000,000ºC a nuclear fusion occurs in the clouds core. Stage 1- Protostar In stage 1, gravity pulls the hydrogen gas in the nebula together and it begins to spin, as the spin gets faster and faster, it heats up and gets so hot it explodes and a new born star is then introduced into the next stage (main sequence).
Stage 2- Main Sequence The cloud begins to glow brightly; it contracts a little and then becomes stable. It is then called a main sequence star and will remain in this stage, shinning for millions or billions of years. Rigel is then producing helium and hydrogen into the atmosphere.
Stage 3- Red Giant As time goes on, hydrogen fusion, in the core of Rigel becomes inefficient and can no longer hold the other layers of the stars. The layers collapse on the core. When this is happening the temperature rises until it is hot enough to fuse helium into carbon. To release the energy made by the fusion of helium, Rigel expands outwards, becoming much bigger than it originally was forming a red giant.
Stage 4- Supernova As Rigel starts to run out of hydrogen, it will begin fusing other elements. It continues to progress and fuse the element of the periodic table until it reaches Iron. This is because at this point iron is too heavy for the core, and it will collapse on itself. After collapsing, the outer layers will explode outwards. Rigel will emit as much energy in 100 seconds, as it has in its entire time in the main sequence stage and at very high speeds.
Stage 5- Black Hole Rigel has quite a large mass, which means that it will become a black hole. When it runs out of fuel, it can no longer push gravity back, and then the core will collapse. After it collapses on itself, gravity, pushing against Rigel, will compact the core until it’s very small. It will become so small that it will have no volume. By this point it will have infinite density, as well as a speed faster than light it is required to escape its gravitational pull.
Rigel has an approx luminosity of 10^5, a surface temperature of 10,000 degrees Kelvin and it's spectral class is between B and A, but is much closer to A.