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Common star 20 EP

24 UMi

RA 262.6958° · Dec 86.9680° · star

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
20 pts · Common
Common 22 pts → Uncommon
  • Naked-eye visible +8
  • White A-type star +5
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) +4
  • Star +3
Total score 20

2 more points to reach Uncommon.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Naked-eye visible · +8
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) · +4
  • White A-type star · +5

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads A2m — an A-type star: white-hot, typically about twice the Sun's mass, and the class most of the sky's famous bright stars belong to.

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 5.8 you can see it with your own eyes from a dark site, over in Ursa Minor.
  • Never sets. So far north that from Britain, Canada or northern Europe it never dips below the horizon — it is up every clear night of the year.
  • 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. Hopelessly far for any craft humanity can build today.

Getting there

  • Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 2.7 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).
  • Fastest probe ever. ≈ 238.8 thousand years even at the Parker Solar Probe's 192 km/s.

Properties

absmag
2.425
bv
0.239
constellation
UMi
dist ly
152.9094
luminosity
9.3325
mag
5.78
name
24 UMi
spect
A2m

About 24 UMi

24 UMi is a common star. It lies about 152.9 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation UMi, shines at apparent magnitude 5.78 and has spectral type A2m.

Its spectrum reads A2m — an A-type star: white-hot, typically about twice the Sun's mass, and the class most of the sky's famous bright stars belong to.

How to see it

Look for 24 UMi in the constellation UMi. At apparent magnitude 5.78, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, 24 UMi 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 24 UMi is a common star

24 UMi scores 20 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the common tier. Another 2 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 4 science badges — Star, Naked-eye visible, Never sets (northern circumpolar) and White A-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.