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Uncommon star 22 EP

16 Ori

RA 77.3318° · Dec 9.8296° · star

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
22 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Naked-eye visible +8
  • In Orion's hunting ground +6
  • White A-type star +5
  • Star +3
Total score 22

12 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Naked-eye visible · +8
  • In Orion's hunting ground · +6
  • White A-type star · +5

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads A2m — 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 5.4 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. Hopelessly far for any craft humanity can build today.

Getting there

  • Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 3.1 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).
  • Fastest probe ever. ≈ 278.6 thousand years even at the Parker Solar Probe's 192 km/s.

Properties

absmag
1.74
bv
0.249
constellation
Ori
dist ly
178.4223
luminosity
17.5388
mag
5.43
name
16 Ori
spect
A2m

About 16 Ori

16 Ori is an uncommon star. It lies about 178.4 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Ori, shines at apparent magnitude 5.43 and has spectral type A2m.

Its spectrum reads A2m — 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 16 Ori in the constellation Ori. At apparent magnitude 5.43, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, 16 Ori 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 16 Ori is an uncommon star

16 Ori scores 22 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 12 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 4 science badges — Star, Naked-eye visible, In Orion's hunting ground 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.