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Rare variable star 35 EP

HD 37642

RA 84.9809° · Dec -3.3305° · star

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Score breakdown

· 7 badges
35 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • In Orion's hunting ground +6
  • Hot blue B-type star +6
  • Variable star +5
  • Blue-white star +5
  • Gently variable +4
  • A named variable star +3
Total score 35

15 more points to reach Epic.

Badges

  • Variable star · +5
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • In Orion's hunting ground · +6
  • Hot blue B-type star · +6
  • Blue-white star · +5
  • Gently variable · +4
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads B9 — 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.
  • It changes. This star does not hold still: its brightness rises and falls on a rhythm of hours, days or years, either pulsing in size or being eclipsed by a companion.

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 8 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, 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. ≈ 43.1 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
-1.341
bv
-0.122
constellation
Ori
dist ly
2452.3008
luminosity
299.5022
mag
8.04
name
HD 37642
spect
B9
var amplitude
0.06
var designation
V1148
var max
8.01
var min
8.07

About HD 37642

HD 37642 is a rare variable star. It lies about 2,452.3 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Ori, shines at apparent magnitude 8.04 and has spectral type B9.

Its spectrum reads B9 — 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 HD 37642 in the constellation Ori. At apparent magnitude 8.04, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 37642 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 HD 37642 is a rare variable star

HD 37642 scores 35 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 15 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 7 science badges — Variable star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), In Orion's hunting ground, Hot blue B-type star, Blue-white star, Gently variable and A named variable 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.