Procyon is a bright star located in the Canis Minor constellation, just 11.41 light-years away from the solar system. It is part of a binary system with Procyon A, a white star, and Procyon B, a small white dwarf. Procyon is a subgiant star that will eventually become a red giant. It has been studied in the field of asteroseismology, but its brightness remains constant, challenging prevailing theories of stellar oscillations.
Procyon is the seventh brightest star in the night sky. It is also one of the closest stars to the solar system, at just 11.41 light-years away. It is located in the constellation Canis Minor. Like many stars, Procyon is part of a binary system that includes Procyon A and Procyon B. Procyon B is a small white dwarf about the size of the Earth (~8600 km in diameter), but half the mass of the Sun.
Procyon A itself is a white star with 1.5 times the mass of the Sun, twice the diameter, and 7 times the luminosity. Its companion Procyon B orbits at a distance similar to that between the Sun and Uranus. Like many other binaries, its existence was inferred from astrometric data decades before being confirmed visually. Astronomers knew its orbit in 1861, but didn’t observe it until 1896.
Procyon is a subgiant star, which means it has fused most of the hydrogen in its core to helium and is rapidly building an inert helium core. This helium center will strongly compress the hydrogen above it due to its immense gravity, causing it to fuse faster and grow the star into a red giant. Midway through its transformation from a main-sequence star to a giant star, Procyon is called a subgiant. In 10 to 100 million years, a relatively short time by the standards of astrophysics, it will swell into a red giant, just as our Sun is expected to do in five billion years.
Due to its proximity, Procyon has been the subject of study in the emerging field of asteroseismology. Efforts have been made to observe swings in the star’s brightness, such as those experienced by our Sun, but these efforts have so far been unsuccessful: the star shines at a very constant rate. These results challenged some of the prevailing theories of stellar oscillations.
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