Antares is on average the fifteenth-brightest in the night sky, and the brightest object in the constellation of Scorpius. Distinctively reddish when viewed with the naked eye, Antares is a slow irregular variable star that ranges in brightness. Antares is a supergiant star with a mass 15 to 18 solar masses and a radius of approximately 883 times that of the Sun.
Distance to Earth: 619.7 light years
Age: 11.01 million years
Constellation: Scorpius
B-V colour index: +1.83
U-B colour index: +1.34
Did you know: At only around 12 million years old Antares is already nearing the end of its lifespan and is expected to explode as a supernova in the next million years.