The star Shaula, my namesake, in the constellation Scorpius, what interesting facts can you tell me about it?

Shaula (Lambda Scorpii)





The second brightest star in the constellation Scorpius; its Arabic name means "the stinger." Along with Lesath and several other stars in southern Scorpius, it belongs to the huge, relatively nearby Scorpius OB1 Association.





Shaula is a subgiant B star with a temperature around 25,000 K and a total luminosity that is about 35,000 that of the Sun. It is, however, a close double made of roughly similar hot stars with an orbital period of 5.9 days. There may also be a third, more distant companion, possibly a white dwarf given that Shaula is an unusually strong source of low-energy X-rays.





Shaula has either stopped hydrogen fusion in its core or is close to doing so. With a mass of around 11 solar masses, it may eventually explode or more likely turn into a heavy white dwarf, possibly one with a neon-oxygen core. Like Mirzam, it is a Beta Cephei star, fluctuating by less than a tenth of a magnitude with two simultaneous periods of 0.21 and 0.11 days.





http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedi…








Lambda Scorpii (λ Sco / λ Scorpii) is the second brightest star system in the constellation Scorpius, and one of the brightest stars in the nighttime sky. It has the Bayer designation λ despite being the second brightest in its constellation. It has the traditional name Shaula, which comes from the Arabic الشولاء al-šawlā´ meaning the raised [tail], as it is found in the tail of the scorpion (Scorpius). It is known as 尾宿八 (the Eighth Star of the Tail) in Chinese.





Lambda Scorpii is a multiple star with three visible components. The first, Lambda Scorpii A, is classified as a B-type subgiant. The 15th magnitude Lambda Scorpii B has a separation of 42 arcseconds from component A, while the 12th magnitude Lambda Scorpii C is 95 arcseconds from A. It is not known whether or not these components are physically associated with component A. If they both were, B would be approximately 7500 Astronomical Units and C approximately 17,000 AU (0.27 light years) from A.





Spectroscopic and interferometric observations have shown that A is actually a triple system consisting of two B-type stars and a pre-main sequence star. The primary star is also a beta Cephei variable star.[3] [4] The pre-main sequence star has an orbital period of 6 days and the B companion has a period of 1053 days. The three stars lie in the same orbital plane, strongly suggesting that they were formed at the same time. The masses of the primary, pre-main sequence star and the B companion are 10.4±1.3, 1.8±0.2 and 8.1±1.0 solar masses, respectively. The age of the system is estimated to be in the range 10–13 million years.





The interferometric and spectroscopic observations allow the distance to the system to be determined independently of other methods. Its distance is 112±5 parsecs.





http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lambda_Scor…