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Beta Centauri
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Beta Centauri

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Also known as: Agena, Hadar
Written by
Erik Gregersen
Erik Gregersen is a senior editor at Encyclopaedia Britannica, specializing in the physical sciences and technology. Before joining Britannica in 2007, he worked at the University of Chicago Press on the...
Erik Gregersen
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Also called:
Hadar or Agena
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Beta Centauri, second brightest star (after Alpha Centauri) in the southern constellation Centaurus and the 10th brightest star in the sky. Beta Centauri is about 390 light-years from Earth. It is a system of three B-type stars. The two brightest stars orbit each other every 357 days and form a spectroscopic binary—a star that is seen as a binary only through analysis of the velocities seen in its spectrum. The third star is a fourth-magnitude star, and it orbits the other two every 225 years.

(List of Brightest Stars as Seen from Earth)

Erik Gregersen