Lambda Muscae, Latinized from λ Muscae, and often catalogued HD 102249 or HIP 57363, is a triple star system and the fourth-brightest star in the Southern Hemisphere constellation of Musca (the Fly). Lambda Muscae visibly makes up the far end of the tail of the visual Musca constellation. It is one of the stars catalogued in astronomer Johann Bayer's 1603 publications Uranometria.
Lambda Muscae is a star of the third magnitude (or 3.68(v) to be exact) when viewed from the Earth, and is visible to the naked eye in regions that lack dense light pollution.
Lambda Muscae is the farthest right star in the visual constellation of Musca and is thus the tail of the fly.
Stellar characteristics
The primary component has a listed spectral type of A7V.[10] The A7 portion of this designation that Lambda Muscae Aa is a class A7 star, meaning the light it emits is bluish-white in color and burns at a temperature significantly hotter than the Sun, which is a G2 star. A7 stars are on the larger end of the Harvard spectral classification list, being only smaller and dimmer than Class-O and Class-B stars.
The other components of the system, the secondary and tertiary, are red dwarfs. They are separated by the primary by 1.65 and 6.4 astronomical units respectively.[6]
^David, Trevor J.; Hillenbrand, Lynne A. (2015), "The Ages of Early-Type Stars: Strömgren Photometric Methods Calibrated, Validated, Tested, and Applied to Hosts and Prospective Hosts of Directly Imaged Exoplanets", The Astrophysical Journal, 804 (2): 146, arXiv:1501.03154, Bibcode:2015ApJ...804..146D, doi:10.1088/0004-637X/804/2/146, S2CID33401607.
^"HIP 57363". The Hipparcos and Tycho Catalogues. ESA. 1997. Retrieved 21 December 2008.
