Astronomy

Celestial bodies in Shanghai

🇨🇳 Shanghai, 2025/10/25, 00:35

This is photo was captured by iPhone 12 Pro.

This is a photo of the Huangpu River with modern high-rise buildings and prominent celestial bodies in the sky.

Castor and Pollux are the two brightest stars in the constellation Gemini, symbolizing the mythical twin brothers in Greek mythology.

* Castor (α Geminorum): A complex sextuple star system 52 light-years away. Visually a single star of magnitude 1.58, it consists of three binary pairs (hot A-type and cooler M-dwarf stars) orbiting each other. Appears white-blue.

* Pollux (β Geminorum): An orange giant (K0 III) star, magnitude 1.15, about 34 light-years away. The brightest star in Gemini, it’s 33 times more luminous than the Sun and has a confirmed exoplanet (Pollux b).

Together, they form the "heads" of the Twins, easily visible in winter and spring skies, with Pollux slightly brighter and more orange than Castor’s cool white hue..

Procyon (α Canis Minoris) – magnitude 0.34, the 8th brightest star in the night sky, 11.5 light-years away. A yellow-white binary star (F5 IV–V + white dwarf companion).