Star Mimosa: Star in the constellation Crux
Mimosa is the second brightest object in the southern constellation of Crux after Acrux, and the 21st brightest star in the night sky.
It has the Bayer designation β Crucis, which is Beta Crucis in Latin. Its name when shortened is Beta Cru or β Cru. Mimosa is part of the prominent asterism called the Southern Cross. It is a binary star or a possible triple star system. It is also one of the closest stars with a infrared bow shock.
Based on parallax measurements, Mimosa is 277 light years from Earth. In 1957, German astronomor Wulff-Dieter Heintz discovered that it is a spectroscopic binary with components that are too close together to resolve with a telescope. The pair orbit each other every five years with a guessed separation that changes from 5.4 to 12.0 AU. The age of the system is only 8 to 11 million years.
References
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