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Rare star 41 EP

HD 39680

RA 88.6864° · Dec 13.8547° · star

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
41 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Blazing O-type star +26
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • In Orion's hunting ground +6
  • Star +3
Total score 41

9 more points to reach Epic.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • In Orion's hunting ground · +6
  • Blazing O-type star · +26

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads O6:pe SB — an O-type star — the hottest, rarest main class there is. Fewer than one star in a million is an O, and none of them lasts long.

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 7.9 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Orion.
  • Northern sky. It rides the northern half of the sky — an easier target the further north 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. Impossible with our current technology — and the next millennium of it.

Getting there

  • Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 45.9 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).
  • Fastest probe ever. ≈ 4.1 million years even at the Parker Solar Probe's 192 km/s.

Properties

absmag
-1.615
bv
0.008
constellation
Ori
dist ly
2609.248
luminosity
385.4784
mag
7.9
name
HD 39680
spect
O6:pe SB

About HD 39680

HD 39680 is a rare star. It lies about 2,609.2 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Ori, shines at apparent magnitude 7.9 and has spectral type O6:pe SB.

Its spectrum reads O6:pe SB — an O-type star — the hottest, rarest main class there is. Fewer than one star in a million is an O, and none of them lasts long.

How to see it

Look for HD 39680 in the constellation Ori. At apparent magnitude 7.9, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 39680 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 39680 is a rare star

HD 39680 scores 41 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 9 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 4 science badges — Star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), In Orion's hunting ground and Blazing O-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.