68_Ophiuchi
68 Ophiuchi
Binary star system in the constellation Ophiuchus
68 Ophiuchi is a binary star system in the equatorial constellation of Ophiuchus. It is visible to the naked eye as a faint star with an apparent visual magnitude of 4.42.[2] The system is located around 89.69 parsecs (292.5 ly) distant from the Sun, based on parallax,[1] and is drifting further away with a radial velocity of +6 km/s.[6]
This is a spectroscopic binary with an orbital period of 177 years and an eccentricity of 0.83.[7] The brighter member, component A, is an A-type main-sequence star of spectral type A2Vn,[4] a star that is currently fusing its core hydrogen. The 'n' suffix indicates "nebulous" lines due to rapid rotation. The star is suspected of varying between magnitudes 4.42 and 4.48.[12] It displays an infrared excess that matches a circumstellar disk of dust orbiting 32.5 AU from the star with a mean temperature of 160 K.[13] The secondary companion, component B, is of magnitude 7.48.[3][14]