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Rigel

Rigel is the brightest star in the constellation Orion and the sixth brightest star in the
sky, with visual magnitude 0.18. Although it has the Bayer designation "beta", it is
almost always brighter than Alpha Orionis (Betelgeuse).
Rigel is well beyond the current range of accurate parallax measurements;
spectroscopic estimates place its distance between 700 and 900 light-years (210 and
280 pc), while Hipparcos' best guess is 773 light-years (237 pc), with a margin of
error of about 19%. Rigel is a Blue supergiant at 17 solar masses, it shines with
approximately 40,000 times the luminosity of the Sun.[4] Rigel is the most luminous
star in our local region of the Milky Way; the nearest more powerful star is Deneb,
almost 1,500 light years away in Cygnus.
As it is so bright and it is moving through a region of nebulosity, Rigel lights up
several dust clouds in its general vicinity, the most notable being the IC 2118 (the
Witch Head Nebula).
Rigel is also associated with the Orion Nebula, which - while more or less along the
same line of sight as the star - is almost twice as far away from Earth. Despite the
difference in distance, projecting Rigel's path through space for its expected age
brings it close to the nebula. As a result, Rigel is sometimes classified as an outlying
member of the Orion OB1 Association, along with many of the other bright stars in
that region of the sky; more specifically, it is a member of the Taurus-Orion R1
Association, with the OB1 Association reserved for stars closer to the nebula and
more recently formed.
Rigel is slightly variable, in an irregular way common to supergiants, with a range
from 0.03 to 0.3 of a magnitude over roughly 22-25 days. The Rigel system is known
to be composed of three stars. A fourth star in the system is sometimes proposed, but it
is generally considered that this is a misinterpretation of the main star's variability,
which may be caused by physical pulsation of the surface.

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