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Common star 17 EP

HD 157401

RA 261.1515° · Dec -36.0313° · star

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Score breakdown

· 5 badges
17 pts · Common
Common 22 pts → Uncommon
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Star +3
  • On the zodiac +3
  • Yellow-white F-type star +3
  • Main-sequence star +2
Total score 17

5 more points to reach Uncommon.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • On the zodiac · +3
  • Yellow-white F-type star · +3
  • Main-sequence star · +2

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads F0/F2V — an F-type star — a little hotter, whiter and shorter-lived than the Sun.

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 9.7 you'll want a small backyard telescope, over in Scorpius.
  • Southern sky. It rides the southern half of the sky — an easier target the further south you are.
  • Best time of year. It stands highest in the middle of the night around June — 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. ≈ 18.3 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).
  • Fastest probe ever. ≈ 1.6 million years even at the Parker Solar Probe's 192 km/s.

Properties

absmag
2.198
bv
0.738
constellation
Sco
dist ly
1042.0319
luminosity
11.5027
mag
9.72
name
HD 157401
spect
F0/F2V

About HD 157401

HD 157401 is a common star. It lies about 1,042 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Sco, shines at apparent magnitude 9.72 and has spectral type F0/F2V.

Its spectrum reads F0/F2V — an F-type star — a little hotter, whiter and shorter-lived than the Sun.

How to see it

Look for HD 157401 in the constellation Sco. At apparent magnitude 9.72, a small backyard telescope will bring it into view.

Like any astronomical target, HD 157401 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 157401 is a common star

HD 157401 scores 17 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the common tier. Another 5 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 5 science badges — Star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), On the zodiac, 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.