Mu Cephei facts for kids
Mu Cephei, also known as Herschel's Garnet Star, is a super big and bright star. It's found in the Cepheus constellation, which is a group of stars that looks like a king. People call it the Garnet Star because it has a beautiful deep red color, just like a garnet gemstone. It's one of the largest stars we know!
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Mu Cephei compared to the Sun and the orbits of the inner planets.
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Artist's picture
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What is Mu Cephei?
Mu Cephei is a type of star called a hypergiant. Hypergiants are some of the biggest and brightest stars in the universe. Imagine our Sun; Mu Cephei is much, much larger than that!
How Big is it?
This amazing star is truly enormous. Its radius is about 1,420 times bigger than the Sun's radius. To give you an idea, if Mu Cephei were in the middle of our solar system, its edge would reach past the orbit of Jupiter. That's a distance of almost 2 billion kilometers!
A Star That Changes Brightness
Mu Cephei is also special because it is a "semiregular variable star." This means its brightness changes over time, but in a somewhat predictable way. It's like a light bulb that gets a little brighter and then a little dimmer, following a pattern. Scientists study these changes to learn more about how stars work.
Images for kids
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1785 portrait of William Herschel, who named the star.
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Mu Cephei (circled) as can be seen in binoculars. The bright star on the right is Alpha Cephei (Alderamin).
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A graph showing how Mu Cephei's brightness changes over time.
See also
In Spanish: Mu Cephei para niños
