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Rare star 41 EP

HD 163522

RA 269.6468° · Dec -42.4861° · star

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Score breakdown

· 6 badges
41 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Supergiant +18
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Hot blue B-type star +6
  • Blue-white star +5
  • Star +3
  • On the zodiac +3
Total score 41

9 more points to reach Epic.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • 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 B1Iab:p — 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. Drop it where the Sun is and its surface would engulf the inner planets.

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 8.4 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. Impossible with our current technology — and the next millennium of it.

Getting there

  • Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 22.3 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
0.46
bv
-0.002
constellation
Sco
dist ly
1269.0896
luminosity
57.0164
mag
8.41
name
HD 163522
spect
B1Iab:p

About HD 163522

HD 163522 is a rare star. It lies about 1,269.1 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Sco, shines at apparent magnitude 8.41 and has spectral type B1Iab:p.

Its spectrum reads B1Iab:p — 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 163522 in the constellation Sco. At apparent magnitude 8.41, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 163522 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 163522 is a rare star

HD 163522 scores 41 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 9 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 6 science badges — Star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), 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.