science

Gliese 318

Gliese 318 is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Gliese 318 rather than just read about it. In short: Gliese 318 is a white dwarf in the constellation Pyxis. Its spectral type is DA5.5 and it has a visual magnitude of 11.85, and lies 27.8 light-years (8.5 parsecs) away.

Key takeaways

Gliese 318 belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Gliese 318 to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Gliese 318 from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Gliese 318 is a white dwarf in the constellation Pyxis. Its spectral type is DA5.5 and it has a visual magnitude of 11.85, and lies 27.8 light-years (8.5 parsecs) away. The star was too faint to have had its parallax measured by the Hipparcos satellite. Earth-based measurement in 2009 gave its parallax as 113.63±1.97 milliarcseconds, yielding a distance of 28.7±0.5 light-years; this parallax measurement has since been substantially improved by Gaia. Gliese 318 is a rather young white dwarf with an age estimated to be 590 million years. Its temperature is around 9,000 K and it shines with 0.13 percent of the luminosity of the Sun. Like all white dwarfs, Gliese 318 is small, with just 1.5 percent the Sun's radius (1.6 R🜨), but has around half the Sun's mass. Bragaglia et al. suspect this star to be a double white dwarf due to strong spectral line variations. From Gaia DR2 it was not possible to confirm this claim. It is still possible that Gliese 318 is a double white dwarf and additional spectroscopic observations are needed in order to confirm this claim. Gliese 318 could be the closest double white dwarf to earth.

Notes

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Gliese 318

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Gliese 318 claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Gliese 318 before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Gliese 318 ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Gliese 318

In research: Gliese 318 appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Gliese 318 in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Gliese 318 is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Durchmusterung objects, Gliese and GJ objects, Pyxis, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Gliese 318 outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Gliese 318 in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Gliese 318 means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Gliese 318 out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Gliese 318 in simple terms?

Gliese 318 is a white dwarf in the constellation Pyxis. Its spectral type is DA5.5 and it has a visual magnitude of 11.85, and lies 27.8 light-years (8.5 parsecs) away.

Why does Gliese 318 matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Gliese 318?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Gliese 318.