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Rare star 35 EP

HD 161667

RA 267.1781° · Dec -39.8988° · star

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Score breakdown

· 5 badges
35 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Supergiant +18
  • Hot blue B-type star +6
  • Blue-white star +5
  • Star +3
  • On the zodiac +3
Total score 35

15 more points to reach Epic.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • On the zodiac · +3
  • Hot blue B-type star · +6
  • Supergiant · +18
  • Blue-white star · +5

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads B8Ib/II — 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.
  • Where it is in life. It is a supergiant, hundreds of times wider 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 7 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. ≈ 13.6 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
0.107
bv
-0.034
constellation
Sco
dist ly
772.8814
luminosity
78.9223
mag
6.98
name
HD 161667
spect
B8Ib/II

About HD 161667

HD 161667 is a rare star. It lies about 772.9 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Sco, shines at apparent magnitude 6.98 and has spectral type B8Ib/II.

Its spectrum reads B8Ib/II — 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 161667 in the constellation Sco. At apparent magnitude 6.98, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 161667 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 161667 is a rare star

HD 161667 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 5 science badges — Star, On the zodiac, Hot blue B-type star, Supergiant and Blue-white 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.