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Epic variable star 57 EP

HD 143414

RA 240.9556° · Dec -62.6933° · star

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Score breakdown

· 6 badges
57 pts · Epic
Epic 78 pts → Anomaly
  • Wolf-Rayet star (shedding itself) +34
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Variable star +5
  • Blue-white star +5
  • Gently variable +4
  • A named variable star +3
Total score 57

21 more points to reach Anomaly.

Badges

  • Variable star · +5
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • Wolf-Rayet star (shedding itself) · +34
  • Blue-white star · +5
  • Gently variable · +4
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads WN6 SB1 — a Wolf-Rayet star: a stellar monster shedding its own outer layers in a ferocious wind, on its way to a supernova.
  • It changes. This star does not hold still: its brightness rises and falls on a rhythm of hours, days or years, either pulsing in size or being eclipsed by a companion.

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 10.1 you'll want a small backyard telescope, over in Triangulum Australe.
  • Southern sky only. So far south it never rises for most of the northern hemisphere. To see it you'd have to travel to Chile, South Africa or Australia.
  • 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. Impossible with our current technology — and the next millennium of it.

Getting there

  • Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 51.6 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
0.317
bv
-0.064
constellation
TrA
dist ly
2938.3423
luminosity
65.0429
mag
10.09
name
HD 143414
spect
WN6 SB1
var amplitude
0.17
var designation
LT
var max
9.993
var min
10.163

About HD 143414

HD 143414 is an epic variable star. It lies about 2,938.3 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation TrA, shines at apparent magnitude 10.09 and has spectral type WN6 SB1.

Its spectrum reads WN6 SB1 — a Wolf-Rayet star: a stellar monster shedding its own outer layers in a ferocious wind, on its way to a supernova.

How to see it

Look for HD 143414 in the constellation TrA. At apparent magnitude 10.09, a small backyard telescope will bring it into view.

Like any astronomical target, HD 143414 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 HD 143414 is an epic variable star

HD 143414 scores 57 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the epic tier. Another 21 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 6 science badges — Variable star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), Wolf-Rayet star (shedding itself), Blue-white star, Gently variable and A named variable star — 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.