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Common star 15 EP

GL Gl 356B

RA 143.9181° · Dec 35.8104° · star

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Score breakdown

· 3 badges
15 pts · Common
Common 22 pts → Uncommon
  • Binary star +6
  • Intrinsically feeble (Mv > +12) +6
  • Star +3
Total score 15

7 more points to reach Uncommon.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Binary star · +6
  • Intrinsically feeble (Mv > +12) · +6

Trivia

What makes it special

  • Not one star but two. It is a binary: two stars orbiting a shared centre of mass. More than half of all the 'stars' you can see are actually multiple systems.

Sense of scale

  • In perspective. Inside our stellar backyard: every radio broadcast humanity has ever made has already swept past it.

Find it in the sky

  • How to spot it. At magnitude 13 it is far too faint for the eye: this one belongs to cameras and long exposures, over in Leo Minor.
  • Northern sky. It rides the northern half of the sky — an easier target the further north you are.
  • Best time of year. It stands highest in the middle of the night around February — 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. ≈ 640.7 thousand years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).
  • Fastest probe ever. ≈ 56.9 thousand years even at the Parker Solar Probe's 192 km/s.

Properties

absmag
12.758
binary
yes
constellation
LMi
dist ly
36.4623
luminosity
0.0007
mag
13
name
GL Gl 356B

About GL Gl 356B

GL Gl 356B is a common star. It lies about 36.5 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation LMi and shines at apparent magnitude 13.

It is a binary: two stars orbiting a shared centre of mass. More than half of all the 'stars' you can see are actually multiple systems.

How to see it

Look for GL Gl 356B in the constellation LMi. At apparent magnitude 13, it takes a larger telescope or a long-exposure image to capture.

Like any astronomical target, GL Gl 356B 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 GL Gl 356B is a common star

GL Gl 356B scores 15 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the common tier. Another 7 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 3 science badges — Star, Binary star and Intrinsically feeble (Mv > +12) — 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.