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Common star 21 EP

GL GJ 9453B

RA 203.7309° · Dec 74.4993° · star

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
21 pts · Common
Common 22 pts → Uncommon
  • Deep red star +8
  • Binary star +6
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) +4
  • Star +3
Total score 21

1 more point to reach Uncommon.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Binary star · +6
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) · +4
  • Deep red star · +8

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 k — a K-type star. Orange K dwarfs are the marathon runners of the galaxy, burning steadily for tens of billions 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 13.5 it is far too faint for the eye: this one belongs to cameras and long exposures, over in Ursa Minor.
  • Never sets. So far north that from Britain, Canada or northern Europe it never dips below the horizon — it is up every clear night of the year.
  • 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. ≈ 1.8 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
10.927
binary
yes
bv
1.44
constellation
UMi
dist ly
105.2117
luminosity
0.0037
mag
13.47
name
GL GJ 9453B
spect
k

About GL GJ 9453B

GL GJ 9453B is a common star. It lies about 105.2 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation UMi, shines at apparent magnitude 13.47 and has spectral type k.

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 GJ 9453B in the constellation UMi. At apparent magnitude 13.47, it takes a larger telescope or a long-exposure image to capture.

Like any astronomical target, GL GJ 9453B 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 GJ 9453B is a common star

GL GJ 9453B scores 21 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the common tier. Another 1 point would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 4 science badges — Star, Binary star, Never sets (northern circumpolar) and Deep red 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.