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Uncommon star 32 EP

55 Ari

RA 47.4031° · Dec 29.0771° · star

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Score breakdown

· 6 badges
32 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Naked-eye visible +8
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Hot blue B-type star +6
  • Giant star +6
  • Star +3
  • On the zodiac +3
Total score 32

2 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • Naked-eye visible · +8
  • On the zodiac · +3
  • Hot blue B-type star · +6
  • Giant star · +6

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads B8III — 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 5.7 you can see it with your own eyes from a dark site, over in Aries.
  • 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. Impossible with our current technology — and the next millennium of it.

Getting there

  • Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 18.5 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
-1.81
bv
0.115
constellation
Ari
dist ly
1055.5211
luminosity
461.3176
mag
5.74
name
55 Ari
spect
B8III

About 55 Ari

55 Ari is an uncommon star. It lies about 1,055.5 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Ari, shines at apparent magnitude 5.74 and has spectral type B8III.

Its spectrum reads B8III — 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 55 Ari in the constellation Ari. At apparent magnitude 5.74, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, 55 Ari 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 55 Ari is an uncommon star

55 Ari scores 32 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 2 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 6 science badges — Star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), Naked-eye visible, On the zodiac, Hot blue B-type star and Giant 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.