Altair

Altair /ælˈtɛər/, designation α Aquilae (Latinised to Alpha Aquilae, abbreviated Alpha Aql, α Aql), is the brightest star in the constellation of Aquila and the twelfth brightest star in the night sky. It is currently in the G-cloud—a nearby interstellar cloud, an accumulation of gas and dust. Altair is an A-type main sequence star with an apparent visual magnitude of 0.77 and is one of the vertices of the Summer Triangle asterism (the other two vertices are marked by Deneb and Vega). It is 16.7 light-years (5.13 parsecs) from the Sun and is one of the closest stars visible to the naked eye. Altair rotates rapidly, with a velocity at the equator of approximately 286 km/s. This is a significant fraction of the star's estimated breakup speed of 400 km/s. A study with the Palomar Testbed Interferometer revealed that Altair is not spherical, but is flattened at the poles due to its high rate of rotation. Other interferometric studies with multiple telescopes, operating in the infrared, have imaged and confirmed this phenomenon. α Aquilae (Latinised to Alpha Aquilae) is the star's Bayer designation. The traditional name Altair has been used since medieval times. It is an abbreviation of the Arabic phrase النسر الطائر an-nasr aṭ-ṭāʼir 'the flying eagle'. In 2016, the International Astronomical Union organized a Working Group on Star Names (WGSN) to catalog and standardize proper names for stars. The WGSN's first bulletin of July 2016 included a table of the first two batches of names approved by the WGSN, which included Altair for this star. It is now so entered in the IAU Catalog of Star Names. Along with β Aquilae and γ Aquilae, Altair forms the well-known line of stars sometimes referred to as the Family of Aquila or Shaft of Aquila. Altair is a type-A main sequence star with about 1.8 times the mass of the Sun and 11 times its luminosity. Altair rotates rapidly, with a rotational period of about 9 hours; for comparison, the equator of the Sun makes a complete rotation in a little more than 25 days. Its rapid rotation forces Altair to be oblate; its equatorial diameter is over 20 percent greater than its polar diameter. Satellite measurements made in 1999 with the Wide Field Infrared Explorer showed that the brightness of Altair fluctuates slightly, varying by just a few thousandths of a magnitude with several different periods less than 2 hours. As a result, it was identified in 2005 as a Delta Scuti variable star. Its light curve can be approximated by adding together a number of sine waves, with periods that range between 0.8 and 1.5 hours. It is a weak source of coronal X-ray emission, with the most active sources of emission being located near the star's equator. This activity may be due to convection cells forming at the cooler equator.