16 Virginis is a single star in the zodiac constellation of Virgo, located about 308 light years from the Sun. It has the Bayer designation c Virginis; 16 Virginis is the Flamsteed designation. This object is visible to the naked eye as a faint, orange-hued star with an apparent visual magnitude of 4.96. This is an IAU radial velocity standard star; it is moving further from the Earth with a heliocentric radial velocity of +37 km/s. The star has a relatively high proper motion, traversing the celestial sphere at an angular rate of per year.
In Chinese astronomy, 16 Virginis is called 謁者, Pinyin: Yèzhě, meaning Usher to the Court, because this star is marking itself and stand alone in Usher to the Court asterism, Supreme Palace enclosure mansion (see : Chinese constellation).
This is an evolved K-type giant star with a stellar classification of, where the suffix notation denotes a mild underabundance of iron in the spectrum. It is a red clump giant, which indicates is on the horizontal branch generating energy via helium fusion at its core. The interferometry-measured angular diameter of this star, after correcting for limb darkening, is, which, at its estimated distance, equates to a physical radius of about 18 times the radius of the Sun. It is about three billion years old with 1.62 times the mass of the Sun and is radiating 132 times the Sun's luminosity from its enlarged photosphere at an effective temperature of 4,423 K.
Horizontal-branch stars