Thursday, November 21, 2013

The Star Furud.

The star Zeta Canis Majoris, notably known as Furud, draws its name from the Arabic vocabulary Al-Furud. Which means the bright single ones or solitary ones It is also known as the Ape which refers to the surrounding tiny stars (Allen, 1889). This paper will centre on the star Furud, facts about it, and how the star and the constellation that it resides came about their names.

Furud is a third magnitude star, sandwiched between the Greater dogs bottom triangle, the dove (Columba) and Adhara. Furud finds itself in close proximity to the Milky way making it dimmed by interstellar dust particles. This necessitates a correction to be made in order to calculate its luminosity. When this is done and a further correction is made with regard to ultra violet light radiated at 27500 Kelvin we obtain its luminosity as 4020 times that of the sun. This results in a solar radius of 4.6. The star has a rotation period of less than 9 days this is due to equatorial rotational speed of 25 kilometers per second.  Stellar composition theory, leads to a mass almost eight times that of the sun, and depicts the star to be more or less half way through its hydrogen fusing lifecycle of just 32 million years.

There are rumors that the luminosity of Furud varies although no evidence is forwarded to justify this. Perhaps its proximity to the Milky Way may have something to do with this. Despite its name suggesting Furud to be a solitary star, the star is a spectroscopic binary that has a low mass companion which shifts the star front and back as the two orbit over a period of six hundred and seventy five days which is approximately equal to one year and eight months.

Furud is not a solitary star. It has a lower mass spectroscopic companion that has it shift back and forth resulting in the pair orbiting over a period of 675 days. When a guess of two solar masses is considered it gives a separation of 3.2 million astronomical units (60 Suns distance from Jupiter), a soaring eccentricity of 0.57 shifting the stars between 5.1 and1.4 Astronomic Units apart. Furud is dangerously close to the mass threshold above which a star explodes in to supernovae but there are chances that one day it will form a planetary nebula followed by a gigantic white dwarf. Its proximity to the Milky Way makes it to be a bit dim by interstellar dust, that is, by 0.16 magnitudes (Kale).
T
he constellation, within which Farud resides, is known as Canis Major there are numerous stories that have been told and written with respect to this constellation. Some of them are highlighted below
CANIS MAJOR The Great Dog. This constellation is average in size, what makes it popular is the fact that it is home to the brightest star, Sirius, the Dog Star. (Sasaki 32). From the ancient times, Canis Major is considered one of the Dogs that the Giant Orion took along to his hunting escapades. However, some people claim that the dog attained its name in honor of given by Aurora to Cephalus considered to be his most flexible species. The Legend states that Cephalus raced the dog against a fox which was applauded to be the fastest among all animal species. They raced for a considerable amount of time and none of them emerged a victor, Jupiter was bowled over   by the speed displayed by the hound that he decided immortalize the dog and offered him among the stars. Another story however, asserts that it was Icarius dog. The story is different among the Scandinavians who regard the Dog as Sigurds while the ancient Indians knew it as The Deer slayer.

Arabic astronomers called the constellation, Al-Kalb-Al- Akabar which means the greater Dog, and among the ancient Christians the star, Euphratean star list, Canis major is designed as the Dog of the Sun., the Christians perceived it to be Tobias Dog or St. Davids (Olcott, 95).

According to Speer, Furud was a dancing star who danced with joy sending all over the sky and communicated love messages to those below. But unlike others, the star Furud was lonely. Despite all the brightness in him, there was a vacuum inside him that could never be filled no matter how vigorously he danced. The love Furud  showered to others   through  his dance was never reciprocated and for this reason he grew dull day by day until he could not do it no more, he desperately summoned the last brightness left in him converted it into a spirit kiss sent it to the air from where it descended to earth, Once it touched the earth, the kiss converted into a gentle breeze that touched people and animals lives with love But his love was still never reciprocated, thus the sadness and loneliness in him did not cease. Then one day Furud found a beautiful maiden and blew his spirit kiss all over her, immediately she recognized the spirit was different and this made Furud overly excited. That is the legend behind how the star Furud attained its name.

1 comment:

  1. Nice... I was wondering if any planets have been found orbitting Furud?

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