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Rare star 42 EP

15The UMi

RA 232.8543° · Dec 77.3494° · star

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Score breakdown

· 7 badges
42 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Intrinsically luminous (Mv < −2) +10
  • Naked-eye visible +8
  • Deep red star +8
  • Giant star +6
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) +4
  • Star +3
  • Orange K-type star +3
Total score 42

8 more points to reach Epic.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Naked-eye visible · +8
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) · +4
  • Orange K-type star · +3
  • Giant star · +6
  • Deep red star · +8
  • Intrinsically luminous (Mv < −2) · +10

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads K5III — a K-type star. Orange K dwarfs are the marathon runners of the galaxy, burning steadily for tens of billions of years.
  • Where it is in life. It is a giant. It has already exhausted its core hydrogen and swollen up enormously in response.

Sense of scale

  • In perspective. Far away by human standards, yet still a local address inside the Milky Way's spiral arms.

Find it in the sky

  • How to spot it. At magnitude 5 you can see it with your own eyes from a dark site, over in Ursa Minor.
  • Never sets. So far north that from Britain, Canada or northern Europe it never dips below the horizon — it is up every clear night of the year.
  • Best time of year. It stands highest in the middle of the night around May — that's when to go looking.

Could we get there?

  • Verdict. Hopelessly far for any craft humanity can build today.

Getting there

  • Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 15 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
-2.095
bv
1.545
constellation
UMi
dist ly
856.0525
luminosity
599.7911
mag
5
name
15The UMi
spect
K5III

About 15The UMi

15The UMi is a rare star. It lies about 856.1 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation UMi, shines at apparent magnitude 5 and has spectral type K5III.

Its spectrum reads K5III — a K-type star. Orange K dwarfs are the marathon runners of the galaxy, burning steadily for tens of billions of years.

How to see it

Look for 15The UMi in the constellation UMi. At apparent magnitude 5, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, 15The UMi is best seen from a dark site away from city lights, and when it is above the horizon depends on your latitude and the time of year. The visibility panel above works out tonight's viewing window for your saved location.

Why 15The UMi is a rare star

15The UMi scores 42 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 8 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 7 science badges — Star, Naked-eye visible, Never sets (northern circumpolar), Orange K-type star, Giant star, Deep red star and Intrinsically luminous (Mv < −2) — each earned for a real, measurable property of the object. Rarity on Spacedle is never random: the more remarkable an object's astrophysics, the more badges it collects, the higher it scores, and the rarer it ranks.