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Trash star 3 EP

HD 161218

RA 266.8868° · Dec -56.1660° · star

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Score breakdown

· 1 badge
3 pts · Trash
Trash 15 pts → Common
  • Star +3
Total score 3

12 more points to reach Common.

Badges

  • Star · +3

Trivia

Could we get there?

  • Verdict. Hopelessly far for any craft humanity can build today.

Getting there

  • Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 4.9 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).
  • Fastest probe ever. ≈ 433 thousand years even at the Parker Solar Probe's 192 km/s.
  • At 10% light speed. ≈ 2773 years in a starship at a tenth of light speed.
  • Distance. 277 light-years from Earth.

Look-back time

  • Look-back time. The light you'd see left around the year 1749.

Saying hello

  • Say hello. A radio message and its reply would take 555 years round-trip.

Properties

absmag
2.712
bv
0.393
constellation
Ara
dist ly
277.3435
mag
7.36
name
HD 161218
spect
F0/F2III

About HD 161218

HD 161218 is a trash star. It lies about 277.3 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Ara, shines at apparent magnitude 7.36 and has spectral type F0/F2III.

HD 161218 is a trash star worth 3 points across 1 science badge. Explore its facts, badges and place on the sky map, then add it to your dex on Spacedle.

How to see it

Look for HD 161218 in the constellation Ara. At apparent magnitude 7.36, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 161218 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 161218 is a trash star

HD 161218 scores 3 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the trash tier. Another 12 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 1 science badge — 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.

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Sky imagery and survey data courtesy of Aladin Lite & CDS, Strasbourg. Object data from the NASA Exoplanet Archive, JPL Small-Body Database, and the ATNF Pulsar Catalogue.