Analysis of the Star CO Aur
Location
CoLab, COM 143
Start Date
30-4-2026 9:30 AM
Document Type
Poster
Description
The star CO AUR is an extremely interesting star. Its primary trait is being a Cepheid Variable, a rare type of star that has helped astronomers measure the distance of stars and faraway celestial bodies. CO Aur is a double-mode cepheid star, and an extremely rare type of one at that. CO Aur pulsates in both overtones; this trait has only been observed in one other star. Our findings on CO Aur will hopefully improve our understanding of astronomy. Our calculations suggest CO Aur has a temperature of 5563.97 K. Based on an average apparent magnitude of 7.77 and a distance of 951.11 [or 980] parsecs, we calculate an absolute magnitude of -2.121 [with an older source giving an absolute magnitude of -3.1]. This gives a luminosity of [either] 603.204 [or 1485.936] Solar luminosity, and a radius of [either] 26.688 [or 41.888] solar radii. The values we used to do the calculations were found in articles on the Astrophysics Data System as well as on SIMBAD. This star is extremely interesting due to its categorization as a cepheid variable. It would be interesting to study this star further to see how much insight into stellar evolution we could gather from it.
Image
Analysis of the Star CO Aur
CoLab, COM 143
The star CO AUR is an extremely interesting star. Its primary trait is being a Cepheid Variable, a rare type of star that has helped astronomers measure the distance of stars and faraway celestial bodies. CO Aur is a double-mode cepheid star, and an extremely rare type of one at that. CO Aur pulsates in both overtones; this trait has only been observed in one other star. Our findings on CO Aur will hopefully improve our understanding of astronomy. Our calculations suggest CO Aur has a temperature of 5563.97 K. Based on an average apparent magnitude of 7.77 and a distance of 951.11 [or 980] parsecs, we calculate an absolute magnitude of -2.121 [with an older source giving an absolute magnitude of -3.1]. This gives a luminosity of [either] 603.204 [or 1485.936] Solar luminosity, and a radius of [either] 26.688 [or 41.888] solar radii. The values we used to do the calculations were found in articles on the Astrophysics Data System as well as on SIMBAD. This star is extremely interesting due to its categorization as a cepheid variable. It would be interesting to study this star further to see how much insight into stellar evolution we could gather from it.
Comments
The faculty mentor for this project was Doug Patterson.