14 Aurigae

14 Aurigae is a quadruple star system located 272 light years away from the Sun in the zodiac constellation of Auriga. It has the variable star designation KW Aurigae, whereas 14 Aurigae is the Flamsteed designation. It is visible to the naked eye as a faint, white-hued star with a combined apparent visual magnitude of 5.01. The system is moving closer to the Sun with a heliocentric radial velocity of −9 km/s.

The magnitude 5.08 primary member, designated component A, is a single-lined spectroscopic binary system in a circular orbit with a period of 3.7887 days. The visible member has a stellar classification of A9 IV or A V, depending on the source. In 1966, Ivan John Danziger and Robert John Dickens discovered that 14 Aurigae star is a variable star. It is a Delta Scuti variable with an amplitude of 0.08 magnitude and a period of 2.11 hours. It is 609 million years old with 1.64 times the mass of the Sun.

Component B lies about 10″ to the north of the primary and is merely a visual companion. However, component C, an F-type main sequence star of magnitude 7.86, shares a common proper motion with component A and thus they form a system. This member is also a single-lined spectroscopic binary, having a period of 2.9934 days. The final member of the system, now designated component Cb, is a white dwarf star that is separated from the C, or rather Ca pair by 2″. If it is indeed bound to Ca, its orbital period is around 1,300 years.