Kappa Pyxidis

Kappa Pyxidis, Latinized from κ Pyxidis, is a single, orange-hued star in the southern constellation of Pyxis. It is visible to the naked eye as a faint point of light with an apparent visual magnitude of +4.62. The star is located approximately 520 light years from the Sun based on parallax, but is drifting closer with a radial velocity of −45 km/s and may come as close as in around 2.6 million years. It is moving through space at the rate of 53.7 km/s relative to the Sun and is following an orbit through the Milky Way galaxy with a large eccentricity of 0.68
This is an aging giant with a stellar classification of K4III, having exhausted the supply of hydrogen at its core then expanded and cooled. At present it has 67 times the radius of the Sun. It is a variable star of uncertain type, changing brightness with an amplitude of 0.0058 in visual magnitude over a period of 8.5 days. The star radiates 927 times the luminosity of the Sun from its bloated photosphere at an effective temperature of 3,931 K. A magnitude 10 visual companion is located at an angular separation of .