Talk:Aldebaran

Clarify
I removed It is the sun in the Arabian mythology. If someone can clarify the significance of this statement, I think it would fit nicely in the paragraph about astrological & mythological significance. Lusanaherandraton 13:17, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

Aldebaran Ab?
This object is not listed in the Extrasolar Planets Encyclopedia, even in the unconfirmed/controversial/retracted list. The best I've managed to come up with is a paper "Long-period radial velocity variations in three K giants" which suggests that the variation is intrinsic to the star rather than a companion. Chaos syndrome 18:30, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
 * It was listed in the Extrasolar Planets Encyclopedia before but I guess that Jean Schneider removes from the list the objects that are clearly proved not to be planets. The object should be mentioned in the article, but it doesn't deserve a section, let alone a copyrighted image.--Jyril 06:07, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
 * The companion seems to get mentioned on several sites about Aldebaran, e.g., so might as well discuss it. The designation "Aldebaran Ab" on the other hand seems fictitious - it isn't used in the papers published about it. Chaos syndrome 19:01, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

In the light of the comments above the sentence "In 1997, a possible large planet..." (while literally true in the sense that a planet was reported) should not be allowed to stand unqualified, even though the paragraphs further down indicate that it is not now accepteted that a large planet has been detected. I'll add a reference to the talk page but also ask that somebody with more authoritative knowledge to update this. EdDavies 17:53, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

persian names of 4 royal stars
please notify that in "star names they lore and meaning" written by richard hickney allen the four royal stars named as following:

Hastorang tasheter Vanant Satevis

this last is for considering put on the article, please check the book mentioned

thanks —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 206.49.165.171 (talk • contribs).

In Fiction
I think that the Enya song Aldebaran was ment as the fallen angel Aldebaran, so I think that hould be taken out of the article. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 64.180.59.72 (talk • contribs).

Aldebaran in astrology and mysticism section?
First of all, this section is currently tagged as violating factuality or NPOV, but there's no discussion here of why or how it might be improved. At the very least, this discussion section should cover that.

Secondly, though, and more broadly, this section and the one below it ("Aldeberan in other cultures") seem a bit out of step with the way many other astronomical pages are set up. The information provided about "royal stars" and the like seems, to me, to be a bit out of scope of this article.

For example, Betelgeuse seems to have some significance to astrology, but has no section about its astrological significance, and includes the historical and cultural information under the topic "Origin of the name 'Betelgeuse'".

Generally, however, I suspect that these stars' pages have not been nearly as completely hashed over as the planets' pages, which have much more general interest for both astrologers and astronomers. The article for Mars, for example, includes a short "Mars in Human Culture" section which covers the planet's history in several cultures, and mentions astrology only in the sentence which begins "Its symbol, derived from the astrological symbol of Mars..." The article for Jupiter has no section about historical or cultural significance at all. Both of these pages, however, do link to the appropriate section of Planets_in_astrology in their "See Also" section.

Given the way other astronomical pages are set up, I'd suggest combining "Aldebaran in astrology and mysticism" and "Aldebaran in other cultures" into "Aldeberan in human culture" ("Aldeberan in other cultures" is western-centric, anyway), and moving the astrology-specific things to the already existent Stars_in_astrology. I'd also note that these two sections are poorly sourced in general, and part of such a cleanup should be to find citations for their parts (or to remove the unsourced parts).

Brett A. Thomas 14:35, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Apparent magnitude
The paragraph about numerical parameters contained the sentence "Taken together this distance and brightness makes it the 14th brightest star, having an apparent magnitude of 0.87." This formulation could be confusing to laymen, as it tends to suggest that apparent magnitude is computed as a function of distance and brightness. In fact, apparent magnitude ***is*** the observed brightness of the object, with a correction for atmospheric attenuation. Although it is a consequence of distance and ***luminosity*** (a parameter that should not be confused with brightness), it is not determined by a computation involving distance, but by observation. I have rewritten the sentence. Piperh 05:13, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

I am doing a report and i CAN NOT find when Aldebaran is brightest....help?!?!? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.225.91.170 (talk) 22:58, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Size of Aldebaran
While reading this article I noted a discrepancy. In the article itself (part: Physical properties) it states the size of the main star to be 38x that of the Sun. On the right side under Observation data it gives a radius of only 25x that of the Sun. Which is correct?--Interested66 (talk) 13:06, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
 * The right side infobox now has 44.2, so someone must have fixed that. In the Physical properties section I have just now changed the 38 to 44.2 to match what the 2005 citation stated (and I added a note on how the derived diameter value is verified from the angular diameter and distance). 84user (talk) 21:07, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Relevance of Pioneer 10 reference?
I'm not sure why someone decided it was important to tell us that Pioneer 10 will pass Aldebaran in 2 million years. First of all, this is a gross assumption - we have no idea what will become of Pioneer in that length of time. Secondly, this bit of information does not tell us anything helpful about Aldebaran, though it might be useful in the article about Pioneer 10. 67.68.46.238 (talk) 14:29, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

The statement in this article about Pioneer 10 is especially problematic since Aldebaran is moving away from us much faster than Pioneer is moving towards it. I'm going to change it to be less commital about Pioneer actually making there. --Jleon (talk) 19:44, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

This short sentence in the introduction is trivia. The Pioneer 10 article says only that the now inactive probe is heading in that general direction in the sky. This has nothing to do with the star. Aldebaran66 (talk) 18:18, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Proposed merge
I propose that the article Aldebaran b should be merged into the radial velocity variations section, and the Aldebaran b article replaced with a redirect. The existence of the object has not been confirmed, so giving it its own article gives it far too much attention when a redirect to this article would suffice. In fact, it looks like the Aldebaran b article is not giving any information that is not already being presented in more detail here. Icalanise (talk) 16:44, 8 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Not sure if we have a protocol on it but I agree it seems like a good idea. Casliber (talk · contribs) 21:15, 8 August 2009 (UTC)


 * I have taken the liberty and redirected the planet's page into its own section on the star's article. Hope you don't mind. —  Nuclear  Vacuum  17:36, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Gnosticism is neo-nazi?
Under the subsection Gnosticism there is a only a paragraph which describes a "neo-Nazi esoteric Nazi Gnostic" group. Whether this group and its beliefs belong here or not i think should be decided by consensus however it certainly is not Gnosticism nor Marcionism. I suggest it either gets deleted or the heading renamed. Xaghan (talk) 20:13, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

The bit about "Nazi Flying Saucers from Antarctica" indicates this is a hoax/joke/vandalism to the entry. I second deletion. (talk) 00:12, 12 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I have copied the Gnostic Nazi section, to preserve it now that it has been (correctly) deleted from the article. It is just too hilarious to lose entirely. Aldebaran66 (talk) 07:01, 31 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Neo-Nazis A neo-Nazi sect called the Tempelhofgesellschaft believes that Aldebaran is the original source of the Aryan race and that an enormous space fleet from Aldebaran is on its way to Earth to join forces with the Nazi Flying Saucers from Antarctica to establish the Western Imperium.

Citation for the Pioneer 10 claim
I have found the Citation for the Pioneer 10 claim that has the (citation needed) label. ^ According to NASA, the Voyager 1 spacecraft reached the termination shock on 2005-05-24, Voyager 2 on 2007-08-30. Both had travelled at that time about 16 000 bil. km. The termination shock lies nearer to the Sun than the heliopause. Pioneer 10 has reached about 15 363 bil. km on 2008-12-01 Pioneer 10 on 2008-12-01 00:00 UTC with the Solar System Simulator/ So, it is clear that it hasn't reached the heliopause since 1st December 2008, and that nobody will ever know when it reaches it, as Pioneer 10 has terminated communication in 2003 This is the footnote from the Pioneer 10 article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.208.34.185 (talk) 23:23, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Popular culture
Im suprised or embarrassed. Is there a Widipedia reference for this star from Rolling Stones song: 2000 light years from home if no reference, how do we add? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.169.40.78 (talk) 04:05, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
 * See the Aldebaran in fiction article, in the Music section.Aldebaran66 (talk) 05:06, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Myths
The following paragraph was removed from the Myths section of the article for lacking a citation for more than a year and having little to do with the star. I have preserved it here for future reference. This article has similarities to the previously deleted Gnostic Nazi section listed above. Aldebaran66 (talk) 20:36, 1 January 2012 (UTC)


 * The Vril Society was founded as "The All German Society for Metaphysics" in 1921 to explore the origins of the Aryan race. It was formed by a group of female psychic mediums led by the Thule Society medium Marija Oršić (Maria Orshitsch) of Zagreb, who claimed to have received communication from Aryan aliens living on Alpha Tauri, in the Aldebaran system. Allegedly, these aliens had visited Earth and settled in Sumeria, and the word Vril was formed from the ancient Sumerian word "Vri-Il" ("like god"). A second medium was known only as Sigrun, a name etymologically related to Sigrune, a Valkyrie and one of Wotan's nine daughters in Norse legend.

Apparent magnitude
According to the text is -2,1... but this is extremely improbable, as it would be the brightest star on sky. According to es:Aldebaran it's +0.85 -Theklan (talk) 11:44, 17 August 2012 (UTC)


 * The visual apparent magnitude (vmag) is listed as 0.75-0.95. The near-IR J-band magnitude is -2.10 since it is a nearby red giant star. -- Kheider (talk) 14:50, 17 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I thing taht this is very confusing for people that doesn't understand all parameters. If you click over apparent magnitude you get an information that would lead to thing Aldebaran is currently the brightest star on sky, with -2.1. -Theklan (talk) 14:22, 19 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I have modified the intro to apparent magnitude to help explain it somewhat, but I do not want to get too wordy. The average reader just needs to make sure they are comparing vmags and not jmags. The infobox does display (V) and (J) next to the different apmags. -- Kheider (talk) 01:44, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

supernova
Didn't the late Isaac Assimov suggest that Aldebaran was the nearest star that was likely to flare up into a supernova at any time?AT Kunene (talk) 19:10, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
 * The mass is too low for a Type II supernova. It needs to be up around 8+ solar masses. Perhaps you are thinking of Betelgeuse? Praemonitus (talk) 22:40, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

Aldebaran B
Seems to have been recovered by Gaia DR2 as Gaia DR2 3313069881589149824. Pllx 47.3417±0.105. Colors indicate a spectral type of M3.5V or so. JamesFox (talk) 11:21, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

Surface gravity
The article says " It has a surface gravity of 1.59 cgs, typical for a giant star, but around 25 times lower than the Earth's " Surely the CGS unit of acceleration is cm s^-2, so 1.59 of them is equivalent to 0.0159 m s^-2, or 1/616 of the Earth's gravity? Have I misunderstood something? HairyDan (talk) 21:16, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Surface gravity for stars is usually expressed as a logarithm due to the large range of possible values. This gives a dimensionless number, the cgs just indicates the metric system that was used for the initial acceleration.  log(g) of 1.59 means an acceleration due to gravity of $cm/s2$, approximately $38.9 cm/s2$ compared to the Earth at about $980 cm/s2$.  Using log(g), the Earth's surface gravity is 2.99 cgs, higher than most giant stars but lower than main sequence stars.  In the same system the surface gravity of the Sun is 4.4 cgs.  Lithopsian (talk) 21:28, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

Preferred radius
Which radius for Aldebaran should be preferred? 44.13 or 45.1? Nussun05 (talk) 10:34, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

Planet Aldebaran b is confirmed
NASA Exoplanet Archive cites Aldebaran b as a confirmed exoplanet. It also cites Aldebaran as a binary star, with a red dwarf companion. InTheAstronomy32 (talk) 17:18, 25 January 2024 (UTC)


 * While the Exoplanet Archive is one of the better database sources, it can still have missing or outdated information - published scientific papers should always be preferred over databases. In this case, while Hatzes et al. 2015 found sufficient evidence for a planet for the Exoplanet Archive to add it as "confirmed", this was challenged by Reichert et al. 2019. Both sources are cited in the article, though the latter gets only one sentence - it should probably be better integrated into the article. Another source is Döllinger & Hartmann 2021, which mentions Aldebaran b as one of four questionable planets around giant stars.
 * The companion star is mentioned in the "Visual companions" section but treated as unconfirmed; this could be updated based on e.g. Mugrauer 2019 (the Exoplanet Archive's source). SevenSpheres (talk) 17:01, 26 January 2024 (UTC)