Gamma Comae Berenices
Gamma Comae Berenices is an orange-hued giant star in the northern constellation Coma Berenices. With an apparent magnitude of 4.36, it is visible to the naked eye. It lies about 169 light-years away and is moving away from the Sun at roughly 3 km/s.
This star is a K-type giant (K1 III) with a bit of iron in its spectrum (Fe0.5). It is thought to be on the horizontal branch, about 2.7 billion years old, and has a mass about 1.65 times that of the Sun. It has expanded to around 12 solar radii and shines with about 61 times the Sun’s luminosity at a temperature near 4650 K. Its metallicity is slightly above solar, and it rotates slowly (v sin i ≤ 17 km/s). The surface gravity is log g ≈ 2.53.
Gamma Comae Berenices appears to be part of the line-of-sight to the Coma Star Cluster but is probably not a true cluster member.
Other names for the star include Al Ḍafīrah in Arabic and Lángwèiyī in Chinese astronomy, where it is listed as the first star of the asterism Lángwèi (Officers of the Imperial Guard).
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 02:49 (CET).