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Capella
(Alpha Aurigae) is the brightest star in the constellation Auriga,
about 46 light years from Earth. Although it appears as a single point
to the naked eye, Capella is actually a bright close binary pair of
yellow giant stars alongside a second, fainter binary.
In the Star Trek original series episode "Friday's Child", Capella IV
is the fourth planet in the Capella system located near Federation
space and the Klingon Empire, and is known for its rich deposits of
topaline. A series of events involving a Klingon agent, Kras, and
Captain Kirk led to the signing of a mining treaty between the
Federation and the Capellans.
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Capella, as depicted in "Friday's Child"
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Capella is in reality a yellow star and
it's interest lies in the fact that it is an easily-studied
non-eclipsing spectroscopic binary star. These two giant G-class stars
have luminosities of around 50 and 80 times that of the Sun and lie
less than 100 million km apart. The stars were probably of spectral
class A during their main sequence, similar to Sirius, and are in the
process of becoming red giants in a few million more years as they
continue to expand, cool, and brighten. Capella is a source of X-rays,
probably due to surface magnetic activity on one of the pair. The
central stars also have a faint companion that is itself a double star,
consisting of two M-class red dwarf stars, that orbit at around a light
year away from the main pair.
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