The Wikipedia article of the day for February 14, 2017 is Epsilon Eridani.
Epsilon Eridani is a star in the constellation of Eridanus. Viewable from most of Earth’s surface along a declination 9.46° south of the celestial equator, it is 10.5 light-years away and has an apparent magnitude of 3.73. It is the third-closest individual star or star system visible to the unaided eye. Estimated at less than a billion years old, the young star has a higher level of magnetic activity than the present-day Sun, with a stellar wind 30 times as strong. Epsilon Eridani is smaller and less massive than the Sun, with a greater proportion of hydrogen and helium. It is a main-sequence star of spectral class K2, which means that energy generated at the core through nuclear fusion of hydrogen is emitted from the surface at a temperature of about 5,000 K, giving it an orange hue. Observations for more than twenty years have yielded evidence of a giant planet orbiting the star, making it one of the nearest systems with a candidate exoplanet. The detection of this planet, Epsilon Eridani b, was announced by Bruce Campbell, Gordon Walker and Stephenson Yang in 1987.
Wikipedia article of the day for February 14, 2017
Posted on February 22, 2017 ·


