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Common star 17 EP

HD 163378

RA 269.5209° · Dec -45.4564° · star

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
17 pts · Common
Common 22 pts → Uncommon
  • Giant star +6
  • White A-type star +5
  • Star +3
  • On the zodiac +3
Total score 17

5 more points to reach Uncommon.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • On the zodiac · +3
  • White A-type star · +5
  • Giant star · +6

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads A6III — 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.
  • 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 7.8 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. ≈ 14.2 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
0.807
bv
0.33
constellation
Sco
dist ly
809.3202
luminosity
41.419
mag
7.78
name
HD 163378
spect
A6III

About HD 163378

HD 163378 is a common star. It lies about 809.3 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Sco, shines at apparent magnitude 7.78 and has spectral type A6III.

Its spectrum reads A6III — 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 HD 163378 in the constellation Sco. At apparent magnitude 7.78, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 163378 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 163378 is a common star

HD 163378 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, White A-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.