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Epic star 50 EP

3Pi 4Ori

RA 72.8015° · Dec 5.6051° · star

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Score breakdown

· 8 badges
50 pts · Epic
Epic 78 pts → Anomaly
  • Intrinsically luminous (Mv < −2) +10
  • Naked-eye visible +8
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • In Orion's hunting ground +6
  • Hot blue B-type star +6
  • Giant star +6
  • Blue-white star +5
  • Star +3
Total score 50

28 more points to reach Anomaly.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • Naked-eye visible · +8
  • In Orion's hunting ground · +6
  • Hot blue B-type star · +6
  • Giant star · +6
  • Blue-white star · +5
  • Intrinsically luminous (Mv < −2) · +10

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads B2III SB — 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 3.7 you can see it with your own eyes from a dark site, over in Orion.
  • Seen from everywhere. It sits almost on the celestial equator, so it can be seen from essentially anywhere on Earth.
  • Best time of year. It stands highest in the middle of the night around December — 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
-3.863
bv
-0.157
constellation
Ori
dist ly
1052.116
luminosity
3056.3283
mag
3.68
name
3Pi 4Ori
spect
B2III SB

About 3Pi 4Ori

3Pi 4Ori is an epic star. It lies about 1,052.1 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Ori, shines at apparent magnitude 3.68 and has spectral type B2III SB.

Its spectrum reads B2III SB — 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 3Pi 4Ori in the constellation Ori. At apparent magnitude 3.68, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, 3Pi 4Ori 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 3Pi 4Ori is an epic star

3Pi 4Ori scores 50 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the epic tier. Another 28 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 8 science badges — Star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), Naked-eye visible, In Orion's hunting ground, Hot blue B-type star, Giant star, Blue-white star and Intrinsically luminous (Mv < −2) — 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.