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A Journey to the End of Time

The Solar System in 3D, in real time

A simulation of the Solar System driven by real ephemerides. The Sun, the planets, Pluto and the major moons, space probes, the International Space Station, nearby stars and the black hole at the centre of the Milky Way are where they really are at the chosen moment. You can run time from 1700 to 2100, fly from one object to another and look at the sky from anywhere on Earth.

Deneb

Star

Facts

Distance
uncertain: about 1400 light-years according to NASA APOD, about 2600 according to Schiller and Przybilla 2008
Spectral class
A2 Ia
Surface temperature
8525 K
Mass
about 19 times the Sun
Apparent magnitude
1.25

Deneb is a white supergiant of spectral class A2 Ia, the brightest star in Cygnus; its name is an Arabic word meaning “tail”. It has about 19 times the mass of the Sun and a surface at about 8250 °C.

It shines tens of thousands of times more than the Sun, but exactly how many depends on its distance, which is still uncertain: about 54,000 according to NASA, almost 200,000 according to Schiller and Przybilla, who place it farther away.

It is the north-eastern, and faintest, corner of the Summer Triangle with Vega and Altair. To the naked eye it looks similar to them, but it is thousands of times more luminous: it looks faint because it is much farther away.

Sources