The AsterNym star registry
Hamal
Hamal: the warm orange star of Aries
warm orange · Aries · α Ari
Hamal is a warm orange giant, far along its stellar life in the constellation Aries, one of the stars with a proper name recognised in the IAU Catalog of Star Names. At magnitude 2.00 it is visible to the naked eye under a dark sky.
Most stars in the sky are anonymous points of light. Hamal is not. Some IAU-recognised names are ancient; others were adopted by the IAU only recently. Either way, the star already has a scientific identity, and a dedication attaches a human story to it.
Real star · Personal dedication · Recorded in the AsterNym registry
See what a dedicated page looks like: preview
Hamal at a glance
- Constellation
- Aries
- Other name
- α Ari
- Catalogue number
- HIP 9884
- Distance
- ≈ 66 light-years
- Brightness
- Magnitude 2.00 naked-eye
- Star type
- K2 III
- Colour
- warm orange
- Best seen from
- Almost everywhere on Earth
- Right ascension
- 02h 07m 10s
- Declination
- +23° 27′ 45″
J2000 catalogue coordinates that can be independently cross-checked against astronomical databases. A planetarium app showing coordinates of date will differ slightly, because proper motion and precession move a star’s apparent position over time.
What kind of star is Hamal?
Hamal is an orange giant. Its surface runs roughly 4,000 to 5,000°C, cool enough that the light carries a visible orange. Colour in a star is a temperature reading rather than a decoration: the hot ones are blue and the cool ones red, the opposite way round to a kitchen tap.
Its colour is not the whole story. An orange star still in the steady part of its life would burn for tens of thousands of millions of years. This one is past that stage, and it is cool at the surface because it has swollen outward, not because it was born this way.
It is a giant, which is what a star becomes when it exhausts the hydrogen in its core. It has swollen outward and cooled at the surface, and it is now brighter than it ever was as a young star. The Sun will do this too, in about five thousand million years.
The light you are looking at is old
The light you can see from Hamal left in 1960, which puts it roughly a lifetime ago. Nobody has invented anything since then that the light knows about; it has simply been travelling.
That delay is the part people find hardest and like most. A star is the one thing you can give someone that was already old before either of you was born and will outlast anything else you could have chosen.
It is comfortably visible without equipment on a decent night.
What does the name Hamal mean?
The traditional name Hamal (also written Hemal, Hamul, Ras Hammel) derives from the Arabic رأس الحمل rās al-ħamal "head of the ram", in turn from the name for the constellation as a whole, Al Ħamal "the ram".
Another Arabic name, El Nath or Alnath meaning "the butting, was historically used for this star, including by Geoffrey Chaucer, but it is now associated with Beta Tauri.
Name origin from English Wikipedia. AsterNym does not invent an etymology where none is recorded, and most stars in this catalogue have none: they carry modern names, or a catalogue designation and nothing older.
What could a Hamal dedication represent?
Hamal is especially meaningful for someone who:
- · Deserves something older than any gift shop
- · Marks a beginning, an anniversary or a promise
- · Is remembered every time you look up
- · Has a light you want recorded somewhere permanent
Dedication idea
“For the one I think of when I find Aries in the sky.”
Where can you see Hamal?
It sits 23° north of the celestial equator, so it clears the horizon everywhere short of latitude 67°S, in practice, every inhabited latitude on Earth. It passes directly overhead at latitude 23°N. It stands highest at midnight in October, so October and November evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 2.00 it is an easy naked-eye star from any reasonably dark spot.
Hamal belongs to Aries, where it is the brightest star.
What does Hamal mean in astrology?
The classical fixed-star tradition: Ptolemy, the medieval Behenian lists, Robson’s 1923 compilation. Is silent on Hamal, and we don’t invent lore where none exists. What astrology can still read is the star’s real position, below.
Projected onto the zodiac the way fixed-star astrology reads any star, Hamal stands at 7° Taurus at the J2000 epoch, and the Sun passes that degree around 27 April in the years around 2000. Fixed-star longitude shifts slowly against the tropical zodiac because of precession, about one degree every seventy-two years, so a natal conjunction must be calculated for the birth year rather than read off this J2000 value or a calendar date.
Traditional interpretations, not facts or predictions. The position and dates are computed.
Dedicate Hamal to someone who matters
A flower fades. A card is eventually put away. A star gives your message a place in the sky.
from$29.95a year
Dedicate Hamal →Real star · your message · a page to share
Your Hamal dedication includes
- Your chosen dedication name
- Your personal message
- Hamal's real astronomical coordinates
- A shareable dedication page
- Its location on the AsterNym Galaxy Map
- An optional printable certificate and gift presentation
Hamal keeps its established astronomical name. Your dedication is a personal commemorative record within the AsterNym registry.
Frequently asked questions about Hamal
- What does Hamal mean in astrology?
- The classical fixed-star tradition has no documented meaning for Hamal. Projected onto the zodiac, Hamal stands at 7° Taurus, and the Sun passes that degree each year around 27 April.
- Is Hamal the brightest star?
- Hamal shines at magnitude 2.00 · visible to the naked eye on a clear night, one of the few thousand stars with an officially recognised name.
- How far away is Hamal?
- Hamal is approximately 66 light-years from Earth. The light reaching us tonight began its journey around 66 years ago.
- Which constellation contains Hamal?
- Hamal is the brightest star in Aries.
- Can everyone see Hamal?
- It sits 23° north of the celestial equator, so it clears the horizon everywhere short of latitude 67°S, in practice, every inhabited latitude on Earth. It passes directly overhead at latitude 23°N. It stands highest at midnight in October, so October and November evenings are the best time to look. At magnitude 2.00 it is an easy naked-eye star from any reasonably dark spot.
- Is dedicating Hamal an official astronomical renaming?
- No. Hamal keeps its internationally recognised astronomical name. An AsterNym dedication records your personal name and message in the AsterNym registry without changing the star's scientific identity.
Explore nearby stars
