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Common star 18 EP

HD 162888

RA 268.6995° · Dec -34.5422° · star

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
18 pts · Common
Common 22 pts → Uncommon
  • Hot blue B-type star +6
  • Giant star +6
  • Star +3
  • On the zodiac +3
Total score 18

4 more points to reach Uncommon.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • On the zodiac · +3
  • Hot blue B-type star · +6
  • Giant star · +6

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads B9.5III — 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 giant. It has already exhausted its core hydrogen and swollen up enormously in response.

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. ≈ 15.5 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
-0.215
bv
0.019
constellation
Sco
dist ly
883.8916
luminosity
106.1696
mag
6.95
name
HD 162888
spect
B9.5III

About HD 162888

HD 162888 is a common star. It lies about 883.9 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Sco, shines at apparent magnitude 6.95 and has spectral type B9.5III.

Its spectrum reads B9.5III — 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 162888 in the constellation Sco. At apparent magnitude 6.95, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 162888 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 162888 is a common star

HD 162888 scores 18 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the common tier. Another 4 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 Giant 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.