About HD 38939
HD 38939 is a trash star. It lies about 252.8 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Pic and shines at apparent magnitude 10.51.
Its colour puts the surface at roughly 5760 K, against the Sun's 5778 K.
Trash star 3 EP
HD 38939
RA 86.7589° · Dec -44.8027° · star
Score breakdown
· 1 badgeTrash 15 pts → Common
- Star +3
Total score 3
12 more points to reach Common.
Badges
- Star · +3
Trivia
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 10.5 you'll want a small backyard telescope, over in Pictor.
- Southern sky. It rides the southern half of the sky — an easier target the further south you are.
- 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).
- Fastest probe ever. ≈ 394.8 thousand years even at the Parker Solar Probe's 192 km/s.
- At 10% light speed. ≈ 2528 years in a starship at a tenth of light speed.
Properties
- absmag
- 6.063
- bv
- 0.656
- constellation
- Pic
- dist ly
- 252.8342
- luminosity
- 0.3272
- mag
- 10.51
- name
- HD 38939
How to see it
Look for HD 38939 in the constellation Pic. At apparent magnitude 10.51, a small backyard telescope will bring it into view.
Like any astronomical target, HD 38939 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 38939 is a trash star
HD 38939 scores 3 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the trash tier. Another 12 points would lift it into a rarer tier.
That score comes from 1 science badge — 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.