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Rare star 38 EP

Yed Prior

RA 243.5864° · Dec -3.6943° · star

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Score breakdown

· 6 badges
38 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Naked-eye visible +8
  • Has a proper name +8
  • Deep red star +8
  • Giant star +6
  • Cool red M-type star +5
  • Star +3
Total score 38

12 more points to reach Epic.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Naked-eye visible · +8
  • Has a proper name · +8
  • Cool red M-type star · +5
  • Giant star · +6
  • Deep red star · +8

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads M1III — an M-type red star — and M stars are the silent majority: roughly three of every four stars in the galaxy are one.
  • 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 2.7 you can see it with your own eyes from a dark site, over in Ophiuchus.
  • Seen from everywhere. It sits almost on the celestial equator, so it can be seen from essentially anywhere on Earth.
  • 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. ≈ 3 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
-0.869
bv
1.584
constellation
Oph
dist ly
171.1207
luminosity
193.9099
mag
2.73
name
Yed Prior
named
yes
spect
M1III

About Yed Prior

Yed Prior is a rare star. It lies about 171.1 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Oph, shines at apparent magnitude 2.73 and has spectral type M1III.

Its spectrum reads M1III — an M-type red star — and M stars are the silent majority: roughly three of every four stars in the galaxy are one.

How to see it

Look for Yed Prior in the constellation Oph. At apparent magnitude 2.73, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, Yed Prior 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 Yed Prior is a rare star

Yed Prior scores 38 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 12 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 6 science badges — Star, Naked-eye visible, Has a proper name, Cool red M-type star, Giant star and Deep red 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.