Mensa

Mensa is a constellation in the southern sky, created in the 18th century. Its name is Latin for table. It covers a keystone-shaped wedge of sky stretching from approximately 4h to 7.5h of right ascension, and −71 to −85.5 degrees of declination. Other than the south polar constellation of Octans, it is the most southerly of constellations. As a result, it is essentially unobservable from the Northern Hemisphere. Besides those already mentioned, its other neighbouring constellations are Chamaeleon, Dorado, Hydrus, and Volans. It is the only constellation named after a feature on Earth. Stars. Mensa contains no bright stars, with Alpha Mensae its brightest star at a barely visible magnitude 5.09, making it the faintest constellation in the entire sky. Alpha Mensae is a solar-type star (class G5 V) 33 light-years from Earth, and is considered a good prospect for harboring an Earth-like planet. Pi Mensae, on the other hand, while also solar-type (G1) and at 59 light-years, has been found to have a large gas giant in an eccentric orbit crossing the habitable zone, which would effectively rule out the existence of any habitable planets. Deep-sky objects. Mensa contains part of the Large Magellanic Cloud (the rest being in Dorado). The first images taken by the Chandra X-Ray Observatory were of PKS 0637-752, a quasar in Mensa with a large gas jet visible in both optical and x-ray wavelengths. [Mensa (constellation). Wikipedia]