Spectral type

#582166
Andy Wilson
Keymaster

According to SIMBAD it is of A2Vn C spectral type. I also found reference to a debris disk in Wikipedia linking to a paper by Wyatt et al 2007 https://arxiv.org/pdf/astro-ph/0703608.pdf.

So it is a main sequence A-type star and the paper quotes an age of 300 Myr, though I think that comes from another paper (I’ve not read the paper in detail, just skimmed a few bits). I am surprised a main sequence star could have a debris disk as I thought this was associated with young stars. If I’ve understood the paper there are collisions in the debris disk generating dust and an IR excess. Perhaps the variation in luminosity is due to variable obscuration by the dust?

Interesting how such a well known and prominent star can throw up surprises to us, well spotted Alan!