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Trash star 9 EP

HD 171279

RA 278.5517° · Dec -7.7123° · star

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Score breakdown

· 2 badges
9 pts · Trash
Trash 15 pts → Common
  • Hot blue B-type star +6
  • Star +3
Total score 9

6 more points to reach Common.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Hot blue B-type star · +6

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads B9p — 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.

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 7.3 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Scutum.
  • Seen from everywhere. It sits almost on the celestial equator, so it can be seen from essentially anywhere on Earth.
  • 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. ≈ 9.5 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).
  • Fastest probe ever. ≈ 840.4 thousand years even at the Parker Solar Probe's 192 km/s.

Properties

absmag
1.262
bv
0.099
constellation
Sct
dist ly
538.2112
luminosity
27.2396
mag
7.35
name
HD 171279
spect
B9p

About HD 171279

HD 171279 is a trash star. It lies about 538.2 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Sct, shines at apparent magnitude 7.35 and has spectral type B9p.

Its spectrum reads B9p — 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 171279 in the constellation Sct. At apparent magnitude 7.35, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 171279 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 171279 is a trash star

HD 171279 scores 9 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the trash tier. Another 6 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 2 science badges — Star and Hot blue B-type 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.