Star Acrux

The star Acrux is the brightest star in the constellation of Crux and with an apparent brightness of 0.77 mag the southernmost star of first magnitude.

Facts about Acrux

Since Acrux is located very far to the south, no proper name was assigned to it in European cultures. Therefore the name "Acrux" was derived from the stars Alpha and Crux. The star Acrux is a triple star system, which lies about 320 light-years away from the solar system. Two of the components a¹Cru and a²Cru can be observed optically separated with today's telescopes. They are stars of spectral type B, which makes them much hotter than the Sun. Their surface temperatures are about 28000 and 26000 Kelvin. They also have a luminosity 25000 times and 16000 times as high as that of the sun.