Key facts
- Constellation
- Cetus
- Right ascension
- 00 43 35.37090
- Declination
- −17 ° 59 ′ 11.7827 ″
- Evolutionary stage
- Red clump
- Spectral type
- K0 III
- U b color index
- +0.88
- B v color index
- +1.01
- Variable type
- Suspected
via Wikipedia infobox
~4 min read
Encyclopedic overview
Beta Ceti is the brightest star in the constellation of Cetus. It is officially named Diphda, pronounced /ˈdɪfdə/; Beta Ceti is its Bayer designation, which is Latinized from β Ceti and abbreviated Beta Cet and β Cet. Although designated 'beta', it is actually brighter than the 'alpha' star in the constellation, Menkar, by half a magnitude. This orange giant is easy to identify due to its location in an otherwise dark section of the celestial sphere. Based on parallax measurements, it lies at an estimated distance of 96.3 light-years (29.5 parsecs) from the Sun.
Properties
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Beta Ceti” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.