What is "rigel"

Rigel \Ri"gel\, n. [Ar. rijl, properly, foot.] (Astron.) A fixed star of the first magnitude in the left foot of the constellation Orion. [Written also Regel.]

bright star in Orion, 1590s, from Arabic Rijl Jauzah al Yusra "the Left Leg of the Central One," from rijl "foot."

Rigel, also designated Beta Orionis (β Orionis, abbreviated Beta Ori, β Ori), is the brightest star in the constellation of Orion and the seventh brightest star in the night sky, with visual magnitude 0.13.

The star as seen from Earth is actually a triple or quadruple star system, with the primary star (Rigel A) a blue-white supergiant that is estimated to be anywhere from 120,000 to 279,000 times as luminous as the Sun, depending on method used to calculate its properties. It has exhausted its core hydrogen and swollen out to between 79 and 115 times the Sun's radius. It pulsates quasi-periodically and is classified as an Alpha Cygni variable. A companion, Rigel B, is 500 times fainter than the supergiant Rigel A and visible only with a telescope. Rigel B is itself a spectroscopic binary system, consisting of two main sequence blue-white stars of spectral type B9V that are estimated to be respectively 3.9 and 2.9 times as massive as the Sun. Rigel B also appears to have a very close visual companion Rigel C of almost identical appearance.

Rigel is an Argentinian sounding rocket. The double stage Rigel (first stage Canopus 1, second stage Orion-2) was launched seven times between 1969 and 1973. The Rigel rocket has a maximum altitude of 310 km, a launch mass of 300 kg, a diameter of 0.228 metres and a length of 6.30 metres.

Rigel is a blue supergiant star in the Orion constellation, also known as Beta Orionis.

Rigel can also refer to:

• Rigil Kentaurus, a Sun-like star in the Centaurus constellation also known as Alpha Centauri A, distance only about 4.37 light-years
• Rigel (dog), a Newfoundland dog said to have helped rescue survivors from the sinking of the Titanic
• Rigel (genus), the megalyrid wasp genus from Chile
• Rigel (microprocessor), a VAX microprocessor chip set developed and fabricated by Digital Equipment Corporation
• Rigel (rocket), an Argentinian sounding rocket
• MS Rigel, a Norwegian and German vessel
• Rescue at Rigel, a computer role-playing game
• Henri-Joseph Rigel, a German-born French composer
• Rigel-3, a fictional planet in the Marvel Universe, homeland of the Rigellians
• Rigel 4, a fictional planet in The Simpsons
• Rigel 9, in the lyrics of the opening theme music to Futurama: Into The Wild Green Yonder is also making loose parody to Rigel 4
• Rigel, a composition for trumpet and piano by Hale A. VanderCook

Rigel was a microprocessor chip set developed and fabricated by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) that implemented the VAX instruction set architecture (ISA). It was introduced on 11 July 1989 with the introduction of the VAX 6000 Model 400, the first system to feature the chip set. Rigel was also used in the VAX 4000 Model 300 and VAXstation 3100 Model 76. Production Rigel CPUs were rated at 35 to 43 MHz.

The Rigel chipset consisted of several devices:

• REX520 central processing unit (also known as the DC520 or "P-chip")
• DC523 floating-point unit (codenamed KIWI or "F-chip" during development)
• DC592 cache controller (codenamed COW or "C-chip" during development)
• DC521 clock chip

In addition, two further devices implemented the VAX vector processor option; these comprised the DC555 Vector Register set chip (VERSE) and the DC556 Vector Data Path chip (FAVOR).

Support chips for Rigel-based systems included the RSSC (Rigel System Support Chip) and Ghidra, the VAX 4000 system interface chip.

Rigel was a large black Newfoundland dog who was said to have saved some of the survivors of the sinking of the RMS Titanic. One account of the story was published in the New York Herald, April 21, 1912, the other was the book Sinking of the Titanic and Great sea disasters by Logan Marshall, published 1912. However, although the story has been widely reproduced, there is certain doubt about whether the dog actually existed.