Luyten 726-8 facts for kids
Luyten 726-8 (also known as UV Ceti or Gliese 65) is a special binary star system. This means it's made of two stars orbiting each other. It's one of Earth's closest neighbors in space, located about 8.7 light years away. You can find it in the constellation called Cetus, which looks like a whale. One of the stars in this pair, called UV Ceti, is famous because it's a "flare star." This means it can suddenly get much brighter!
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Discovery of Luyten 726-8
This interesting star system was found in 1948 by an astronomer named W.J. Luyten. He was making a list of stars that move a lot across the sky. This movement is called "proper motion." Luyten noticed that Luyten 726-8 had a very high proper motion, so he added it to his star catalog.
The Two Stars of Luyten 726-8
The two stars in the Luyten 726-8 system are quite similar in brightness. From Earth, they look very dim because they are far away. They orbit each other, taking about 26.5 years to complete one full circle. The distance between them changes as they orbit, from about 2.1 to 8.8 AU. An AU is the average distance between the Earth and the Sun. The closest star system to Luyten 726-8 is Tau Ceti, which is about 2.87 light years away.
UV Ceti: A Famous Flare Star
Both stars in the Luyten 726-8 system are "variable stars." This means their brightness changes over time. The more exciting of the two is Luyten 726-8B, which is officially named UV Ceti. The other star is known as BL Ceti.
UV Ceti is a very important example of a flare star. Even though it wasn't the first flare star ever found, it's the most well-known. Because of UV Ceti, similar stars are now called "UV Ceti type variable stars." This star can have amazing changes in brightness. For example, in 1952, its brightness shot up by 75 times in just 20 seconds! UV Ceti is a type of star called a red dwarf. It has a spectral type of M6.0e, which tells scientists about its temperature and other features.
Images for kids
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UV Ceti by Andrew Posa (1982)
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An ultraviolet light curve for UV Ceti, adapted from Beskin et al. (2017). This graph shows how UV Ceti's brightness changed during a flare. The main part shows the whole flare, and the smaller picture zooms in on the brightest moment.
