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Common star 16 EP

Zet TrA

RA 247.1163° · Dec -70.0844° · star

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
16 pts · Common
Common 22 pts → Uncommon
  • Naked-eye visible +8
  • Star +3
  • Yellow-white F-type star +3
  • Main-sequence star +2
Total score 16

6 more points to reach Uncommon.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Naked-eye visible · +8
  • Yellow-white F-type star · +3
  • Main-sequence star · +2

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads F9V — an F-type star — a little hotter, whiter and shorter-lived than the Sun.
  • Where it is in life. It is on the main sequence, quietly fusing hydrogen in its core exactly as the Sun does.

Sense of scale

  • In perspective. Inside our stellar backyard: every radio broadcast humanity has ever made has already swept past it.

Find it in the sky

  • How to spot it. At magnitude 4.9 you can see it with your own eyes from a dark site, 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. Hopelessly far for any craft humanity can build today.

Getting there

  • Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 694.5 thousand years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
4.483
bv
0.555
constellation
TrA
dist ly
39.5197
luminosity
1.4022
mag
4.9
name
Zet TrA
spect
F9V

About Zet TrA

Zet TrA is a common star. It lies about 39.5 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation TrA, shines at apparent magnitude 4.9 and has spectral type F9V.

Its spectrum reads F9V — an F-type star — a little hotter, whiter and shorter-lived than the Sun.

How to see it

Look for Zet TrA in the constellation TrA. At apparent magnitude 4.9, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, Zet TrA 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 Zet TrA is a common star

Zet TrA scores 16 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the common tier. Another 6 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 4 science badges — Star, Naked-eye visible, Yellow-white F-type star and Main-sequence 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.