Apus facts for kids
| Constellation | |
|
|
| Abbreviation | Aps |
|---|---|
| Genitive | Apodis |
| Pronunciation | genitive |
| Symbolism | The Bird-of-Paradise |
| Right ascension | 13h 51m 07.5441s – 18h 27m 27.8395s |
| Declination | -67.4800797° to -83.1200714° |
| Area | 206 sq. deg. (67th) |
| Main stars | 4 |
| Bayer/Flamsteed stars |
12 |
| Stars brighter than 3.00m | 0 |
| Stars within 10.00 pc (32.62 ly) | 0 |
| Brightest star | α Aps (3.83m) |
| Messier objects | 0 |
| Meteor showers | 0 |
| Bordering constellations |
Triangulum Australe Circinus Musca Chamaeleon Octans Pavo Ara |
| Visible at latitudes between +5° and −90°. Best visible at 21:00 (9 p.m.) during the month of July. |
|
Apus is a small constellation found in the Southern Celestial Hemisphere, which is the southern part of our night sky. It looks like a bird-of-paradise. Its name means "without feet" in Greek. This is because people long ago mistakenly thought that birds-of-paradise didn't have feet.
This constellation was first drawn on a special sky map called a celestial globe in 1598 by Petrus Plancius. Later, Johann Bayer included it in his star atlas, Uranometria, in 1603. Much later, in 1756, the French explorer and astronomer Nicolas Louis de Lacaille gave names to its brighter stars.
The five brightest stars in Apus all have a reddish color. The brightest is Alpha Apodis, which is an orange giant star. It is about 48 times bigger than our Sun and shines 928 times brighter! Another bright star is Gamma Apodis, which is also an aging giant star. Delta Apodis is a double star, meaning it's actually two stars close together that you can see with your eyes. Scientists have even found planets orbiting two star systems in Apus.
Contents
Apus: The Bird-of-Paradise Constellation
Discovering Apus: A Journey Through Time
Apus was one of twelve constellations first shown to the world by Petrus Plancius. He used observations from two Dutch explorers, Pieter Dirkszoon Keyser and Frederick de Houtman. They had traveled on the first Dutch trading trip to the East Indies. Apus first appeared on a celestial globe in 1598.
De Houtman later listed it in his star catalog in 1603, calling it De Paradijs Voghel, which means "The Bird of Paradise" in Dutch. Plancius called it Paradysvogel Apis Indica. The word Apis (meaning "bee" in Latin) was likely a mistake for avis (meaning "bird").
The name Apus comes from the Greek word apous, meaning "without feet." This idea came from a misunderstanding about birds-of-paradise. The first birds brought to Europe in 1522, after Ferdinand Magellan's journey around the world, had their feet and wings removed. This made people think the birds naturally had no feet.
Where to Find Apus in the Sky
Apus covers a part of the sky that is about 0.5% of the total night sky. This makes it the 67th largest constellation out of 88 modern constellations. Because it is in the Southern Celestial Hemisphere, you can see the entire constellation if you are south of 7°N latitude.
It is surrounded by other constellations: Ara, Triangulum Australe, and Circinus to the north. To the west are Musca and Chamaeleon. Octans is to the south, and Pavo is to the east. The International Astronomical Union (IAU) uses "Aps" as the short name for Apus.
Stars and Cosmic Wonders in Apus
Brightest Stars of Apus
There are 39 stars in Apus that are bright enough to be seen with a good telescope. The five brightest stars in Apus are all reddish in color, which is quite unique for a constellation.
- Alpha Apodis is an orange giant star. It is about 430 light-years away from Earth. It shines with a brightness of 3.8, which is how astronomers measure how bright a star appears from Earth. This star was once a blue-white star but has grown much larger and cooler. It is 48 times wider than the Sun and 928 times brighter!
- Beta Apodis is another orange giant star, about 149 light-years away. It is about 1.84 times as massive as our Sun.
- Gamma Apodis is a yellow giant star, located about 150 light-years away. It is about 63 times brighter than the Sun.
- Delta Apodis is a double star. You can see its two parts with binoculars, and they are far enough apart to be seen as separate points of light. One part, Delta1, is a red giant star that changes its brightness slightly over time. The other part, Delta2, is an orange giant.
- Zeta Apodis is an orange giant star, about 300 light-years away. It is 133 times brighter than the Sun.
- Eta Apodis is a white main sequence star, about 140 light-years away. It is 1.77 times as massive as the Sun and 15.5 times brighter. Scientists think it might have a disk of dust orbiting it, like a mini solar system in the making.
- Theta Apodis is a cool red giant star, about 350 light-years away. It is very bright, shining about 3879 times more than the Sun. This star is also a variable star, meaning its brightness changes over about four months. It is losing some of its material into space, creating a "bow shock" as it moves through the galaxy.
Stars with Planets: Exoplanets in Apus
Scientists have found planets orbiting stars in Apus! These planets are called exoplanets because they are outside our solar system.
- One star, HD 131664, has a companion that is not a planet but a brown dwarf. A brown dwarf is like a "failed star" – it's too big to be a planet but not big enough to start shining like a star. This one is about 23 times the mass of Jupiter.
- HD 134606 is a yellow star, similar to our Sun, but it has started to expand and cool. Three planets orbit this star, with different orbital periods: 12 days, 59.5 days, and 459 days. The planets further away from the star are larger.
- HD 137388 is a star that is cooler and less massive than our Sun. It has one planet that is 79 times more massive than Earth. This planet orbits its star every 330 days.
Star Clusters and Nebulae
The Milky Way galaxy, our home galaxy, covers a large part of the Apus constellation. In Apus, you can find some amazing deep-sky objects:
- NGC 6101 is a globular cluster. This is a huge, spherical group of thousands of very old stars, all held together by gravity. It is about 50,000 light-years away and is about 160 light-years wide. It is around 13 billion years old! It has many bright, massive stars called "blue stragglers," which scientists think formed when two stars merged.
- IC 4499 is another globular cluster, but it is a bit more spread out.
- There is also a large, faint nebula (a cloud of gas and dust) that stretches across several degrees of the sky to the east of Beta and Gamma Apodis.
- The galaxies in Apus are generally faint. IC 4633 is a very faint spiral galaxy. It is surrounded by large, faint clouds of gas and dust from the Milky Way, which are lit up by many stars.
See also
In Spanish: Apus para niños
