Talk:Rigel

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	Rigel is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. Even so, if you can update or improve it, please do so.
	This article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on September 28, 2020.
Article milestones Date Process Result April 1, 2020 Good article nominee Listed December 8, 2019 Peer review Reviewed June 30, 2020 Featured article candidate Promoted
Current status: Featured article

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Distance

The first paragraph gives a distance of 860 light-years (260 pc) from Earth. Yet the sidebar lists Distance 1,010 ± 20 ly (309 ± 5 pc). KevinTernes (talk) 14:15, 15 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for pointing that out. I took a look and it seems that the infobox value was obtained using another method, but the value of 860 ly (863, to be exact) is the more widely accepted value. I have updated the infobox and added a reference. -Pax Verbum 18:54, 15 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The distance isn't consistent now to the measured parallax - which i think is a pretty accurate method for this distance. The simbad database also states that the Parallax is actually 3.78 (compare: https://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/simbad/sim-basic?Ident=Rigel). Should the parallax be changed to reflect this value? Or is the gaia data which was used for the 3.2 value more accurate? 194.113.40.61 (talk) 07:18, 13 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The parallax in the starbox is for Rigel B. It should probably have a note to that effect since it isn't obvious from the reference. Yes, it is fairly accurate, but it is also somewhat indirect and potentially doesn't reflect the actual distance of Rigel. The parallax shown at Simbad for Rigel A is the old Hipparcos parallax because Gaia can't yet provide a useful parallax for such bright stars. The Hipparcos value is still widely-used as the "reference" distance for Rigel. Lithopsian (talk) 14:51, 13 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Evolutionary stage

The sidebar says that Rigel is on the main sequence but the text says that it has evolved away from the main sequence. Presumably the text is correct 155.137.25.15 (talk) 11:20, 21 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The sidebar says that the faint companion, or at least one component of it if it is a binary, is on the main sequence. It describes the primary star (component A) as being a blue supergiant. Lithopsian (talk) 20:36, 21 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

references?

What's with all the blank/missing references? Looks like page vandalism... Mastakos (talk) 08:02, 4 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You'll have to explain in more detail, as it's entirely unclear what you could be talking about. Remsense ‥ 论 08:06, 4 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Expected life of Rigel?

The text mentions that Rigel will end in a supernova, and makes the point that it is one of the closest such stars to Earth. it gives Rigel's age, but doesn't say what its expected life will be - hoe long until it is estimated to go supernova??? Mastakos (talk) 08:15, 4 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Estimates of such are highly uncertain. 21 Andromedae (talk) 15:20, 5 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Somewhere between 1 and a million years? Lithopsian (talk) 16:57, 5 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

More details regarding Rigel BC?

Rigel is known to be near a system of 3 stars; however, we do not have any information regarding them other than a suspiciously precise mass. Why is that? Pancakes321 (talk) 04:08, 5 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The orbits of Ba, Bb and C are known to high precision because they are short enough we have measured complete cycles. That allows determining the masses of these objects with high precision using Kepler's laws. Their mutual orbits around A are so long that similar precision is not available for A's mass. Tarl N. (discuss) 04:23, 5 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]