HD 119921

HD 119921 is a single, white-hued star in the southern constellation of Centaurus. it has the Bayer designation z Centauri. This is faintly visible to the naked eye, having an apparent visual magnitude of 5.15. It forms a wide double star with a faint, magnitude 12.50 visual companion, which is located at an angular separation of $−9.8$ as of 2010. HD 119921 is moving closer to us with a heliocentric radial velocity of around −10 km/s, and is currently located some $27.2 arcsecond$ from the Sun. At that distance, the visual magnitude of this star is diminished by 0.15 from extinction due to interstellar dust.

This is an A-type main-sequence star with a stellar classification of A0 V, per Houk (1979). However, Gray & Garrison (1987) have it classed as B9.5 III-n, suggesting it is a more evolved giant star. HD 119921 is spinning rapidly with a projected rotational velocity of 220 km/s. The star is radiating around 125 times the Sun's luminosity from its photosphere at an effective temperature of 8,801 K.

In 1983, Molaro et al. reported the presence of super-ionized elements (triple-ionized carbon and silicon) in the far ultraviolet spectrum of HD 119921. These anomalous features are not normally detected from a star in this temperature range. Instead, these blue-shifted absorption features may originate in the local interstellar medium.