Aldebaran 2

A highly evolved, orange-red giant star, Aldebaran A is still much smaller than the red supergiant

The system is not marked Aldebaran in Union Star catalogs as it is the home system of the New Vrill and the system is known as Heimat.

For Union and system information please see: Heimat, system

Stars
Betelgeuse
 * Alpha Tauri A (Grosse Heimat )
 * Alpha Tauri B (Kleines Licht )

System Summary
Aldebaran, or Alpha Tauri, is a binary star system located around 65.1 light-years (ly) from Sol. The star lies in the central part (4:35:55.2+16:30:33.5 for Star A and 4:35:57.0+16:30:22 for Star B, ICRS 2000.0) of Constellation Taurus (see chart and photo), the Bull -- northwest of Constellation Orion and on the left or eastern tip of the Hyades star cluster. Its proper name, Aldebaran, is derived from the Arabic "Al Dabaran" for the Follower because the star appears to track the night time movement of the Pleiades ("Seven Sisters") star cluster. This first magnitude star is the 13th brightest in Earth's night sky. According to Robert Burnham, Jr. (1931-93), Aldebaran A exhibits an annual proper motion of 0.21" around PA 160° with an radial velocity of about 33 miles (53 km) per second in recession. The system is a member of the Hyades group.

In 1997, a team of astronomers announced the tentative discovery of a giant planet companion "b" to Aldebaran A (more details below). The discovery has yet to be confirmed, and some astronomers suspect that the radial velocity variations may actually reflect a long-term oscillation in Star A itself. (See an animation of the orbit of this possible substellar object around Aldebaran, with a table of basic orbital and physical characteristics.)