The Dog Stars: The hope-filled story of a world changed by global catastrophe

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Mermilliod, Jean-Claude; Mayor, Michel (1990). "Red Giants in Open Clusters. III - Binarity and Stellar Evolution in Five Intermediate-age Clusters: NGC 2360, 2423, 5822, 6811, and IC 4756". Astronomy and Astrophysics. 273 (1): 61–72. Bibcode: 1990A&A...237...61M.

Canis Major is a prominent constellation because of its many bright stars. These include Sirius (Alpha Canis Majoris), the brightest star in the night sky, as well as three other stars above magnitude 2.0. [6] Furthermore, two other stars are thought to have previously outshone all others in the night sky—Adhara (Epsilon Canis Majoris) shone at −3.99 around 4.7million years ago, and Mirzam (Beta Canis Majoris) peaked at −3.65 around 4.42million years ago. Another, NR Canis Majoris, will be brightest at magnitude −0.88 in about 2.87million years' time. [27] a b Hamacher, Duane W.; Frew, David J. (2010). "An Aboriginal Australian Record of the Great Eruption of Eta Carinae". Journal of Astronomical History & Heritage. 13 (3): 220–34. arXiv: 1010.4610. Bibcode: 2010JAHH...13..220H. doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1440-2807.2010.03.06. S2CID 118454721. Pull the Thread: Lots of little details lead Higs to realize just in time that something is very wrong as he is landing the Beast at the airport near the end of the novel. At the closest approach every 50 years, Sirius A and Sirius B can only be resolved with a 12-inch telescope in good viewing conditions. As the two stars approach each other, huge magnetic storms are created between them and both stars start to spin faster as a result of tidal forces getting stronger.

The star Sirius in history

At one point, Sirius was thought to be a member of the Ursa Major Moving Group, an association of stars including most of the brighest stars in Ursa Major constellation, that share a common origin and proper motion through space. In 1909, Ejnar Hertzsprung was the first to suggest this after observing the star system’s movements across the sky. It wasn’t until 2003 and 2005 that analyses revealed this to be unlikely. The stars in the Ursa Major Moving Group were roughly 500 million years old and Sirius is about half this age, and therefore too young to belong to the association. Several terms redirect here. For other uses, see Sirius (disambiguation), Sirius B (disambiguation),and Dog Star (disambiguation). Alpha Canis Majoris appears as a single star to the unaided eye, but it is really a binary star system, composed of a white main sequence star belonging to the spectral class A1 V, known as Sirius A or Alpha Canis Majoris A, and a dim white dwarf with the stellar classification DA2, designated Sirius B or Alpha Canis Majoris B. Delta Canis Majoris – Variable Star". SIMBAD Astronomical Database. Centre de Données astronomiques de Strasbourg . Retrieved 16 February 2014. The two white stars orbit each other with a period of 50.1 years and an average separation roughly 20 times the distance from the Earth to the Sun.

Canovas, H.; Min, M.; Jeffers, S.V.; Rodenhuis, M.; Keller, C.U. (2012). "Constraining the Circumbinary envelope of Z Canis Majoris via Imaging Polarimetry". Astronomy & Astrophysics. 543 (A70): 8 pp. arXiv: 1205.3784. Bibcode: 2012A&A...543A..70C. doi: 10.1051/0004-6361/201117762. S2CID 53690653.

The hottest days?

In 1717, Edmond Halley discovered the proper motion of the hitherto presumed fixed stars [37] after comparing contemporary astrometric measurements with those from the second century AD given in Ptolemy's Almagest. The bright stars Aldebaran, Arcturus and Sirius were noted to have moved significantly; Sirius had progressed about 30 arcminutes (about the diameter of the Moon) to the southwest. [38]

After that time, its distance will begin to increase, and it will become fainter, but it will continue to be the brightest star in the Earth's night sky for approximately the next 210,000years, at which point Vega, another A-type star that is intrinsically more luminous than Sirius, becomes the brightest star. [27]O'Meara, Stephen James (2002). The Caldwell Objects. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. pp.231–33. ISBN 978-0-521-82796-6. Budding, E.; Butland, R. (2011). "Observations and Analysis of the System R Canis Majoris". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 418 (3): 1764–73. Bibcode: 2011MNRAS.418.1764B. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2966.2011.19597.x. The Dog Stars is a post-apocalyptic novel by Peter Heller. It chronicles the struggles of a man trying find human connection after a super-flu has wiped out almost the entire human population. The first spectrum of Sirius B was obtained at Mount Wilson Observatory in 1920. The first photograph of the companion was taken by Dr. Irving W. Lendenblad of the U.S. Naval Observatory in 1970.

Sirius B has a mass almost equal to the Sun, 0.98 solar masses, which makes it one of the more massive white dwarfs known. However, the star’s mass is concentrated into a volume comparable to that of the Earth. Sirius B has a almost the diameter of our planet, 12,000 kilometres, or 7,500 miles. The star’s diameter was measured in 2005 using the Hubble Space Telescope. Canis Major is also home to many variable stars. EZ Canis Majoris is a Wolf–Rayet star of spectral type WN4 that varies between magnitudes 6.71 and 6.95 over a period of 3.766 days; the cause of its variability is unknown but thought to be related to its stellar wind and rotation. [63] VY Canis Majoris is a remote red hypergiant located approximately 3,800 light-years away from Earth. It is one of largest stars known (sometimes described as the largest known) [64] and is also one of the most luminous with a radius varying from 1,420 to 2,200 times the Sun's radius, and a luminosity around 300,000 times greater than the Sun. Its current mass is about 17 ± 8 solar masses, having shed material from an initial mass of 25–32 solar masses. [65] [66] VY CMa is also surrounded by a red reflection nebula that has been made by the material expelled by the strong stellar winds of its central star. W Canis Majoris is a type of red giant known as a carbon star—a semiregular variable, it ranges between magnitudes 6.27 and 7.09 over a period of 160 days. [67] A cool star, it has a surface temperature of around 2,900 K and a radius 234 times that of the Sun, its distance estimated at 1,444–1,450 light-years from Earth. [68] At the other extreme in size is RX J0720.4-3125, a neutron star with a radius of around 5km. [69] Exceedingly faint, it has an apparent magnitude of 26.6. [70] Its spectrum and temperature appear to be mysteriously changing over several years. The nature of the changes are unclear, but it is possible they were caused by an event such as the star's absorption of an accretion disc. [69] What [Hig] encounters along the way brings to the fore primal instincts and essential desires. The action is swift, pinpointing old struggles with little ado: Companionship is what we long for, memory is what confounds us, sex is what agitates the caldron of all we are. The narrative has the urgency and rhythm of Morse code. Scarcity leads to the discovery of new pleasures. To a re-evaluation of what matters. To a sense of home. Giving one’s dog a place among the constellations in the company of a lover amounts to all of the above.” Epsilon Canis Majoris – Double Star". SIMBAD Astronomical Database. Centre de Données astronomiques de Strasbourg . Retrieved 16 February 2014.Heller is a masterful storyteller and THE DOG STARS is a beautiful tribute to the resilience of nature and the relentless human drive to find meaning and deep connections with life and the living. In this chillingly realistic post-apocalyptic setting, readers will root for Heller’s characters and be moved by their toughness as well as their tenderness.” Seven star systems have been found to have planets. Nu 2 Canis Majoris is an ageing orange giant of spectral type K1III of apparent magnitude 3.91 located around 64 light-years distant. [76] Around 1.5 times as massive and 11 times as luminous as the Sun, it is orbited over a period of 763 days by a planet 2.6 times as massive as Jupiter. [77] HD 47536 is likewise an ageing orange giant found to have a planetary system—echoing the fate of the Solar System in a few billion years as the Sun ages and becomes a giant. [78] Conversely, HD 45364 is a star 107 light-years distant that is a little smaller and cooler than the Sun, of spectral type G8V, which has two planets discovered in 2008. With orbital periods of 228 and 342 days, the planets have a 3:2 orbital resonance, which helps stabilise the system. [79] HD 47186 is another sunlike star with two planets; the inner— HD 47186 b—takes four days to complete an orbit and has been classified as a Hot Neptune, while the outer— HD 47186 c—has an eccentric 3.7-year period orbit and has a similar mass to Saturn. [80] HD 43197 is a sunlike star around 183 light-years distant that has two planets: a hot Jupiter-size planet with an eccentric orbit. The other planet, HD 43197 c, is another massive Jovian planet with a slightly oblong orbit outside of its habitable zone. [81] To the Māori, the star marked the beginning of the winter season. They had the same name to describe both the star and the season: Takurua. In 1868, Sirius became the first star to have its velocity measured, the beginning of the study of celestial radial velocities. Sir William Huggins examined the spectrum of the star and observed a red shift. He concluded that Sirius was receding from the Solar System at about 40km/s. [39] [40] Compared to the modern value of −5.5km/s, this was an overestimate and had the wrong sign; the minus sign (−) means that it is approaching the Sun. [41] Distance [ edit ] Knobel, Edward B. (1895). "Al Achsasi Al Mouakket, on a Catalogue of Stars in the Calendarium of". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 55 (8): 429–38. Bibcode: 1895MNRAS..55..429K. doi: 10.1093/mnras/55.8.429.