Psi Draconis
Encyclopedia
Psi Draconis is a star
Star
A star is a massive, luminous sphere of plasma held together by gravity. At the end of its lifetime, a star can also contain a proportion of degenerate matter. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun, which is the source of most of the energy on Earth...

 in the constellation
Constellation
In modern astronomy, a constellation is an internationally defined area of the celestial sphere. These areas are grouped around asterisms, patterns formed by prominent stars within apparent proximity to one another on Earth's night sky....

 Draco
Draco (constellation)
Draco is a constellation in the far northern sky. Its name is Latin for dragon. Draco is circumpolar for many observers in the northern hemisphere...

. It also has the traditional name Dziban, from the Arabic Adh-Dhi'ban, meaning "The two wolves" or "The two jackals". The primary component of the binary system
Binary system
Binary system may refer to:* Binary numeral system, the base-2 internal "machine language" of computers* Binary opposition, a bipolar distinction in philosophy, structuralism and critical theory...

 is suspected to host a substellar companion.

In Chinese astronomy
Chinese astronomy
Astronomy in China has a very long history, with historians considering that "they [the Chinese] were the most persistent and accurate observers of celestial phenomena anywhere in the world before the Arabs."...

, Dziban is called 女史, Pinyin
Pinyin
Pinyin is the official system to transcribe Chinese characters into the Roman alphabet in China, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan. It is also often used to teach Mandarin Chinese and spell Chinese names in foreign publications and used as an input method to enter Chinese characters into...

: Nǚshǐ, meaning Female Protocol, because this star is marking itself and stand alone in Female Protocol asterism, Purple Forbidden enclosure
Purple Forbidden enclosure
The Purple Forbidden enclosure is one of the San Yuan or Three enclosures. Stars and constellations of this group lie near the north celestial pole and visible all year from temperate latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere.-Asterisms:The asterisms are :...

 (see : Chinese constellation
Chinese constellation
Chinese constellations are the way the ancient Chinese grouped the stars. They are very different from the modern IAU recognized constellations. This is because the IAU was based on Greco-Roman astronomy instead of Chinese astronomy....

). 女史 (Nǚshǐ) westernized into Niu She by R.H. Allen, with the meaning is "the Palace Governess", or "a Literary Woman"

Substellar companion?

Okayama Planet Search team published a paper in late 2008 reporting investigations on radial velocity variations observed for a set of evolved stars, showing possible hints of a substellar companion orbiting Psi1 Draconis A, primary component of the binary system
Binary system
Binary system may refer to:* Binary numeral system, the base-2 internal "machine language" of computers* Binary opposition, a bipolar distinction in philosophy, structuralism and critical theory...

. Probably a brown dwarf
Brown dwarf
Brown dwarfs are sub-stellar objects which are too low in mass to sustain hydrogen-1 fusion reactions in their cores, which is characteristic of stars on the main sequence. Brown dwarfs have fully convective surfaces and interiors, with no chemical differentiation by depth...

, the unseen substellar companion would yield a minimum mass 50 times that of Jupiter
Jupiter
Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest planet within the Solar System. It is a gas giant with mass one-thousandth that of the Sun but is two and a half times the mass of all the other planets in our Solar System combined. Jupiter is classified as a gas giant along with Saturn,...

 and an orbital period
Orbital period
The orbital period is the time taken for a given object to make one complete orbit about another object.When mentioned without further qualification in astronomy this refers to the sidereal period of an astronomical object, which is calculated with respect to the stars.There are several kinds of...

 of 8.77 years. The unseen companion is still putative, not yet confirmed.
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