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Uncommon star 31 EP

46Rho Aqr

RA 335.0496° · Dec -7.8211° · star

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Score breakdown

· 6 badges
31 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Naked-eye visible +8
  • Hot blue B-type star +6
  • Giant star +6
  • Blue-white star +5
  • Star +3
  • On the zodiac +3
Total score 31

3 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Naked-eye visible · +8
  • On the zodiac · +3
  • Hot blue B-type star · +6
  • Giant star · +6
  • Blue-white star · +5

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads B8IIIMNp... — 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 5.3 you can see it with your own eyes from a dark site, over in Aquarius.
  • 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 August — 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
-1.809
bv
-0.048
constellation
Aqr
dist ly
881.5028
luminosity
460.8929
mag
5.35
name
46Rho Aqr
spect
B8IIIMNp...

About 46Rho Aqr

46Rho Aqr is an uncommon star. It lies about 881.5 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Aqr, shines at apparent magnitude 5.35 and has spectral type B8IIIMNp....

Its spectrum reads B8IIIMNp... — 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 46Rho Aqr in the constellation Aqr. At apparent magnitude 5.35, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, 46Rho Aqr 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 46Rho Aqr is an uncommon star

46Rho Aqr scores 31 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 3 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 6 science badges — Star, Naked-eye visible, On the zodiac, Hot blue B-type star, Giant star 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.