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Epic star 52 EP

Bellatrix

RA 81.2828° · Dec 6.3497° · star

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Score breakdown

· 8 badges
52 pts · Epic
Epic 78 pts → Anomaly
  • Intrinsically luminous (Mv < −2) +10
  • Naked-eye visible +8
  • Has a proper name +8
  • In Orion's hunting ground +6
  • Hot blue B-type star +6
  • Giant star +6
  • Blue-white star +5
  • Star +3
Total score 52

26 more points to reach Anomaly.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Naked-eye visible · +8
  • Has a proper name · +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 — 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 1.6 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. ≈ 4.4 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
-2.804
bv
-0.224
constellation
Ori
dist ly
252.4428
luminosity
1152.3914
mag
1.64
name
Bellatrix
named
yes
spect
B2III

About Bellatrix

Bellatrix is an epic star. It lies about 252.4 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Ori, shines at apparent magnitude 1.64 and has spectral type B2III.

Its spectrum reads B2III — 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 Bellatrix in the constellation Ori. At apparent magnitude 1.64, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, Bellatrix 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 Bellatrix is an epic star

Bellatrix scores 52 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the epic tier. Another 26 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 8 science badges — Star, Naked-eye visible, Has a proper name, 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.