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Uncommon star 28 EP

Eta Men

RA 73.7965° · Dec -74.9369° · star

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Score breakdown

· 5 badges
28 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Naked-eye visible +8
  • Deep red star +8
  • Giant star +6
  • Star +3
  • Orange K-type star +3
Total score 28

6 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Naked-eye visible · +8
  • Orange K-type star · +3
  • Giant star · +6
  • Deep red star · +8

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads K6III — a K-type star. Orange K dwarfs are the marathon runners of the galaxy, burning steadily for tens of billions 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 5.5 you can see it with your own eyes from a dark site, over in Mensa.
  • Southern sky only. So far south it never rises for most of the northern hemisphere. To see it you'd have to travel to Chile, South Africa or Australia.
  • 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. Hopelessly far for any craft humanity can build today.

Getting there

  • Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 11.7 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
-1.088
bv
1.518
constellation
Men
dist ly
668.3524
luminosity
237.2466
mag
5.47
name
Eta Men
spect
K6III

About Eta Men

Eta Men is an uncommon star. It lies about 668.4 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Men, shines at apparent magnitude 5.47 and has spectral type K6III.

Its spectrum reads K6III — a K-type star. Orange K dwarfs are the marathon runners of the galaxy, burning steadily for tens of billions of years.

How to see it

Look for Eta Men in the constellation Men. At apparent magnitude 5.47, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, Eta Men 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 Eta Men is an uncommon star

Eta Men scores 28 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 6 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 5 science badges — Star, Naked-eye visible, Orange K-type star, Giant star 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.