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Trash star 9 EP

HD 42871

RA 93.5372° · Dec 23.9864° · star

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Score breakdown

· 3 badges
9 pts · Trash
Trash 15 pts → Common
  • Star +3
  • On the zodiac +3
  • Yellow-white F-type star +3
Total score 9

6 more points to reach Common.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • On the zodiac · +3
  • Yellow-white F-type star · +3

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads F0 — an F-type star — a little hotter, whiter and shorter-lived than the Sun.

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 7.5 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Gemini.
  • 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. Hopelessly far for any craft humanity can build today.

Getting there

  • Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 11.7 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).
  • Fastest probe ever. ≈ 1 million years even at the Parker Solar Probe's 192 km/s.

Properties

absmag
0.981
bv
0.355
constellation
Gem
dist ly
665.6244
luminosity
35.2858
mag
7.53
name
HD 42871
spect
F0

About HD 42871

HD 42871 is a trash star. It lies about 665.6 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Gem, shines at apparent magnitude 7.53 and has spectral type F0.

Its spectrum reads F0 — an F-type star — a little hotter, whiter and shorter-lived than the Sun.

How to see it

Look for HD 42871 in the constellation Gem. At apparent magnitude 7.53, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 42871 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 42871 is a trash star

HD 42871 scores 9 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the trash tier. Another 6 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 3 science badges — Star, On the zodiac and Yellow-white F-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.