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Rare star 35 EP

HD 157857

RA 261.5722° · Dec -10.9930° · star

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Score breakdown

· 3 badges
35 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Blazing O-type star +26
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Star +3
Total score 35

15 more points to reach Epic.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • Blazing O-type star · +26

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads O7e — an O-type star — the hottest, rarest main class there is. Fewer than one star in a million is an O, and none of them lasts long.

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 7.8 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Serpens.
  • 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. ≈ 25.1 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).
  • Fastest probe ever. ≈ 2.2 million years even at the Parker Solar Probe's 192 km/s.

Properties

absmag
-0.43
bv
0.096
constellation
Ser
dist ly
1430.5088
luminosity
129.4196
mag
7.78
name
HD 157857
spect
O7e

About HD 157857

HD 157857 is a rare star. It lies about 1,430.5 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Ser, shines at apparent magnitude 7.78 and has spectral type O7e.

Its spectrum reads O7e — an O-type star — the hottest, rarest main class there is. Fewer than one star in a million is an O, and none of them lasts long.

How to see it

Look for HD 157857 in the constellation Ser. At apparent magnitude 7.78, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 157857 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 157857 is a rare star

HD 157857 scores 35 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 15 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 3 science badges — Star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years) and Blazing O-type 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.