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Uncommon star 26 EP

79Zet UMa

RA 200.9849° · Dec 54.9205° · star

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Score breakdown

· 5 badges
26 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Naked-eye visible +8
  • Binary star +6
  • White A-type star +5
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) +4
  • Star +3
Total score 26

8 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Naked-eye visible · +8
  • Binary star · +6
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) · +4
  • White A-type star · +5

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.

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads A1 m — an A-type star: white-hot, typically about twice the Sun's mass, and the class most of the sky's famous bright stars belong to.

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 4 you can see it with your own eyes from a dark site, over in Ursa Major.
  • 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 April — 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. ≈ 1.4 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
2.035
binary
yes
bv
0.13
constellation
UMa
dist ly
78.7817
luminosity
13.366
mag
3.95
name
79Zet UMa
spect
A1 m

About 79Zet UMa

79Zet UMa is an uncommon star. It lies about 78.8 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation UMa, shines at apparent magnitude 3.95 and has spectral type A1 m.

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 79Zet UMa in the constellation UMa. At apparent magnitude 3.95, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, 79Zet UMa 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 79Zet UMa is an uncommon star

79Zet UMa scores 26 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 8 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 5 science badges — Star, Naked-eye visible, Binary star, Never sets (northern circumpolar) and White A-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.