Chi2 Fornacis



Chi2 Fornacis, Latinized from χ2 Fornacis, is a solitary star located in the southern constellation Fornax, the furnace. It is faintly visible to the naked eye as an orange-hued point of light with an apparent magnitude of 5.70. Gaia DR3 parallax measurements imply a distance of 476 light-years and it is currently receding with a heliocentric radial velocity of approximately $$. At its current distance, Chi2 Fornacis' brightness is diminished by an interstellar extinction of 0.11 magnitudes and it has an absolute magnitude of 0.00.

Chi2 Fornacis is an old-disk star and it has a stellar classification of K2 III. The class indicates that it is an evolved K-type giant that has ceased hydrogen fusion at its core and left the main sequence. It has 118% the mass of the Sun but it has expanded to 23.58 times the radius of the Sun. It radiates 194 time the luminosity of the Sun from its photosphere at an effective temperature of $$. Chi2 Fornacis is slightly metal enriched with a near-solar iron abundance of [Fe/H] = +0.02. It spins too slowly for its projected rotational velocity to be measured accurately, having a projected rotational velocity lower than $$.

The star was observed to be variable in infrared light during a 1991 IRAS survey for galaxy clusters. However, its variability in optical light is unknown. In addition, subsequent observations have not confirmed the variability in infrared and optical light. The lenticular galaxy NGC 1380 lies 2 degrees north-northeast of Chi2 Fornacis.