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Trash star 8 EP

HD 17940

RA 43.4849° · Dec 31.6965° · star

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Score breakdown

· 2 badges
8 pts · Trash
Trash 15 pts → Common
  • White A-type star +5
  • Star +3
Total score 8

7 more points to reach Common.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • White A-type star · +5

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads A2 — 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. 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 8 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Perseus.
  • 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 November — 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. ≈ 10.2 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).
  • Fastest probe ever. ≈ 904.6 thousand years even at the Parker Solar Probe's 192 km/s.

Properties

absmag
1.723
bv
0.246
constellation
Per
dist ly
579.318
luminosity
17.8156
mag
7.97
name
HD 17940
spect
A2

About HD 17940

HD 17940 is a trash star. It lies about 579.3 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Per, shines at apparent magnitude 7.97 and has spectral type A2.

Its spectrum reads A2 — 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.

How to see it

Look for HD 17940 in the constellation Per. At apparent magnitude 7.97, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 17940 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 HD 17940 is a trash star

HD 17940 scores 8 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the trash tier. Another 7 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 2 science badges — Star 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.