59 Virginis


59 Virginis is a G-type main-sequence star, located in constellation Virgo at approximately 57 light-years from Earth.

History of observations

59 Virginis is known to astronomers at least from 1598, when it was catalogued by Tycho Brahe in his manuscript catalogue of 1004 fixed stars. Brahe designated it as "Parvula sequens vindemiatricem", which means in Latin "A tiny following Vindemiatrix", and assigned it a visual magnitude 6. Five years later in 1603 Johann Bayer pictured it on constellation Virgo folio of his celestial atlas "Uranometria" and designated it with number 37, letter "e" and name "Alæ dextræ sequens", which means in Latin "Following right wing". Bayer also assigned it a visual magnitude 6.
Four hundred ten years later in 2013 July Kuzuhara et al. announced discovery of orbiting this star planet b. The discovery was made using 8.2-meter Subaru Telescope of Mauna Kea Observatory, Hawaii.

Distance

59 Virginis distance estimates
SourceParallax, masDistance, pcDistance, lyRef.
Gliese & Jahreiss 74.2 ± 9.013.544.0GJ
van Altena et al. 63.0 ± 7.515.951.8GCTP
Perryman et al. 55.71 ± 0.8517.95 ± 0.2758.5 ± 0.9
van Leeuwen 56.95 ± 0.2617.56 ± 0.0857.27 ± 0.26
Gaia Data Release 257.0186 ± 0.252417.54 ± 0.0857.2 ± 0.3

The best estimate is marked in bold.

Age and other characteristics

The star is a young Sun-like star of spectral type G0V and effective temperature 6205 ± 20 K. It is also twice brighter than the Sun, its log is 0.332 ± 0.032. Its rotation period is 3.329 days.
Age of the star was estimated as 0.16 Gyr, 4.5 Gyr, and 2.5 Gyr.

Exoplanet

In 2013, the discovery of a Jovian planet, b, by direct imaging of the system was announced. A later re-analysis suggested that it may actually be a brown dwarf.