WZ Columbae

WZ Columbae, also known as HD 38170, is a solitary, bluish-white hued star located in the southern constellation Columba, the dove. It has an apparent magnitude of 5.28, allowing it to be faintly visible to the naked eye. Based on parallax measurements from the Gaia spacecraft, the object is about 365 light years distant. It appears to be receding from the Solar System, having a heliocentric radial velocity of $$.

WZ Columbae was originally listed as a slowly pulsating B-type star by the General Catalogue of Variable Stars. However, observations from Hempel & Howlger (2003) reveal it to be overabundant in strontium and barium. Combined with Hipparcos photometry, this led to the object being reclassified as an Alpha2 Canum Venaticorum variable. Based on data collected in the Hipparcos passband, it fluctuates between magnitudes 5.27 and 5.29 over 1.38 days. However, TESS data suggests a period of $$ days; double that of the earlier data.

The stellar classification of WZ Columbae is B9/9.5 V — a main-sequence star with the characteristics of a B9 and B9.5 star. It has 3.07 times the mass of the Sun and is estimated to be 394 million years old, having completed 89.2% of its main sequence lifetime. It has a slightly enlarged radius of and an effective temperature of $$. This yields a luminosity 124 times that of the Sun from its photosphere. Like most chemically peculiar stars, WZ Columbae has a relatively slow projected rotational velocity at $$.