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Common star 20 EP

HIP 97868

RA 298.3205° · Dec -37.4015° · star

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
20 pts · Common
Common 22 pts → Uncommon
  • Toward the galactic centre +8
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Star +3
  • On the zodiac +3
Total score 20

2 more points to reach Uncommon.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • Toward the galactic centre · +8
  • On the zodiac · +3

Trivia

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 11.9 you'll want a small backyard telescope, over in Sagittarius.
  • 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 July — 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. ≈ 17.7 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).
  • Fastest probe ever. ≈ 1.6 million years even at the Parker Solar Probe's 192 km/s.
  • At 10% light speed. ≈ 10.1 thousand years in a starship at a tenth of light speed.

Properties

absmag
4.496
bv
0.87
constellation
Sgr
dist ly
1009.7708
luminosity
1.3855
mag
11.95
name
HIP 97868

About HIP 97868

HIP 97868 is a common star. It lies about 1,009.8 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Sgr and shines at apparent magnitude 11.95.

Its colour puts the surface at roughly 5080 K, against the Sun's 5778 K.

How to see it

Look for HIP 97868 in the constellation Sgr. At apparent magnitude 11.95, a small backyard telescope will bring it into view.

Like any astronomical target, HIP 97868 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 HIP 97868 is a common star

HIP 97868 scores 20 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the common tier. Another 2 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 4 science badges — Star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), Toward the galactic centre and On the zodiac — 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.