6 Canum Venaticorum is a single[8] star in the northern constellation Canes Venatici, located 246 light years from the Sun.[1] It is visible to the naked eye as a faint yellow-hued star with an apparent visual magnitude of +5.01.[2] The star is moving closer to the Earth with a heliocentric radial velocity of −4.2 km/s.[5]
This is an evolved G-type giant star with a stellar classification of G9 III,[4] which means it has exhausted the hydrogen supply at its core and expanded. It is a red clump giant, indicating that it is on the horizontal branch and is generating energy through the helium fusion at its core.[3] Data from the Hipparcos mission provided evidence of microvariability with an amplitude of 0.0056 in magnitude and a frequency of 0.00636 per day, or one cycle every 157 days.[9]
6 Canum Venaticorum is about two[2] billion years old with double[2] the mass of the Sun. It has expanded to 9[5] times the Sun's radius and is radiating 68[2] times the Sun's luminosity from its photosphere at an effective temperature of 4,938 K.[2]
^ abKeenan, Philip C.; McNeil, Raymond C. (1989), "The Perkins catalog of revised MK types for the cooler stars", Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series, 71: 245, Bibcode:1989ApJS...71..245K, doi:10.1086/191373.
^ abcdefgMassarotti, Alessandro; et al. (January 2008), "Rotational and Radial Velocities for a Sample of 761 HIPPARCOS Giants and the Role of Binarity", The Astronomical Journal, 135 (1): 209–231, Bibcode:2008AJ....135..209M, doi:10.1088/0004-6256/135/1/209, S2CID 121883397.