Pistol Star

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Authors: Susanne M Hoffmann


Pistol Star with NASA's Hubble Space Telescope (public domain).

"Pistol Star" is a modern star name. The name is in SIMBAD for the blue supergiant with the variable star designation V*4647 Sgr (see VSX) in Sagittarius.

Concordance, Etymology, History

  • Luminous Blue Variable according to Figer et al. (1995)[1] 1995ApJ...447L..29F

The Pistol Star is an extremely luminous, massive blue hypergiant located near the center of the Milky Way, roughly 25,000–26,000 light-years from Earth in the Sagittarius constellation. As a Luminous Blue Variable (LBV) star in the Quintuplet cluster, it is millions of times brighter than our sun.

Mythology

no mythology

IAU Working Group on Star Names

The name has been in SIMBAD for long time and was approved by the IAU WGSN in 202x. As this star is already named ..., the WGSN chose ... (not to apply/ to apply the name to a neighbouring star/ to ...) in the IAU-CSN.


Reference

  1. Figer+ (1995). Two New Wolf-Rayet Stars and a Luminous Blue Variable Star in the Quintuplet (AFGL 2004) near the Galactic Center, Astrophysical Journal Letters v.447, p.L29 https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1995ApJ...447L..29F/abstract

2. Shylaja B S (1997), A pistol in the heart of Milky Way, Bulletin of the Astronomical Society of India, vol25, p421https://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1997BASI...25..421S