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Common star 17 EP

HD 158531

RA 262.9275° · Dec -41.0396° · star

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
17 pts · Common
Common 22 pts → Uncommon
  • Hot blue B-type star +6
  • Subgiant (leaving the main sequence) +5
  • Star +3
  • On the zodiac +3
Total score 17

5 more points to reach Uncommon.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • On the zodiac · +3
  • Hot blue B-type star · +6
  • Subgiant (leaving the main sequence) · +5

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads B7/B8IV: — a blue-white B-type star, with a surface tens of thousands of degrees hot and a life measured in tens of millions of years.

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 7.2 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, 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. Hopelessly far for any craft humanity can build today.

Getting there

  • Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 15.5 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).
  • Fastest probe ever. ≈ 1.4 million years even at the Parker Solar Probe's 192 km/s.

Properties

absmag
0.025
bv
0.06
constellation
Sco
dist ly
883.8916
luminosity
85.1138
mag
7.19
name
HD 158531
spect
B7/B8IV:

About HD 158531

HD 158531 is a common star. It lies about 883.9 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Sco, shines at apparent magnitude 7.19 and has spectral type B7/B8IV:.

Its spectrum reads B7/B8IV: — a blue-white B-type star, with a surface tens of thousands of degrees hot and a life measured in tens of millions of years.

How to see it

Look for HD 158531 in the constellation Sco. At apparent magnitude 7.19, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 158531 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 158531 is a common star

HD 158531 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 4 science badges — Star, On the zodiac, Hot blue B-type star and Subgiant (leaving the main sequence) — 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.