astronomy

HD 131496

HD 131496 is a astronomy 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 HD 131496 rather than just read about it. In short: HD 131496, officially named Arcalís, is an evolved subgiant star with an orbiting exoplanet in the constellation Boötes. With an apparent visual magnitude of 7.9 it is too faint to be visible to the naked eye.

Key takeaways

HD 131496 belongs to astronomy; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect HD 131496 to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of HD 131496 from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

HD 131496, officially named Arcalís, is an evolved subgiant star with an orbiting exoplanet in the constellation Boötes. With an apparent visual magnitude of 7.9 it is too faint to be visible to the naked eye. It is located at a distance of 432 light-years based on parallax measurements, and is drifting further away with a heliocentric radial velocity of 1.4 km/s. At an age of around three billion years, this star has 1.6 times the mass of the Sun and has expanded to 4.3 times the Sun's radius. It is radiating around ten times the luminosity of the Sun from its photosphere at an effective temperature of 4,927 K. Stars like HD 131496 are sometimes referred to as "retired A-stars", since they would have been A-type stars while on the main sequence. This name is most commonly used in connection with the search for extrasolar planets, where they are useful because these evolved stars are cooler and have more spectral lines than their main sequence counterparts, making planet detection easier. HD 131496 and its planet, HD 131496b, were chosen as part of the 2019 NameExoWorlds campaign organised by the International Astronomical Union, which assigned each country a star and planet to be named. HD 131496 was assigned to Andorra. The winning proposal for the name of the star was Arcalís, after a mountain peak in northern Andorra where the Sun shines through a gap twice a year at fixed dates, leading to its use as a primitive Solar calendar. The planet was named Madriu, after a glacial valley and river in southeastern Andorra that forms the major part of the Madriu-Perafita-Claror UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Planetary system An exoplanet was discovered in 2011. It has a mass at least 2.2 times that of Jupiter and is orbiting at a distance of 2.09 astronomical units (AU) once every 883 days.

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with HD 131496

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what HD 131496 claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In astronomy, 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 HD 131496 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 HD 131496 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 HD 131496

In research: HD 131496 appears in astronomy 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 HD 131496 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: HD 131496 is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Boötes, Durchmusterung objects, Henry Draper Catalogue objects, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for HD 131496 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 HD 131496 in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what HD 131496 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 HD 131496 out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is HD 131496 in simple terms?

Why does HD 131496 matter?

Because it connects several astronomy 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 HD 131496?

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 HD 131496.