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Epic star 51 EP

73 Ori

RA 93.9373° · Dec 12.5511° · star

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Score breakdown

· 7 badges
51 pts · Epic
Epic 78 pts → Anomaly
  • Bright giant +12
  • Intrinsically luminous (Mv < −2) +10
  • Naked-eye visible +8
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • In Orion's hunting ground +6
  • Hot blue B-type star +6
  • Star +3
Total score 51

27 more points to reach Anomaly.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • Naked-eye visible · +8
  • In Orion's hunting ground · +6
  • Hot blue B-type star · +6
  • Bright giant · +12
  • Intrinsically luminous (Mv < −2) · +10

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads B9II-III — 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 bright giant, well on its way to the largest stars there are.

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 5.4 you can see it with your own eyes from a dark site, 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. ≈ 20.5 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
-2.324
bv
0.015
constellation
Ori
dist ly
1164.843
luminosity
740.6278
mag
5.44
name
73 Ori
spect
B9II-III

About 73 Ori

73 Ori is an epic star. It lies about 1,164.8 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Ori, shines at apparent magnitude 5.44 and has spectral type B9II-III.

Its spectrum reads B9II-III — 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 73 Ori in the constellation Ori. At apparent magnitude 5.44, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, 73 Ori 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 73 Ori is an epic star

73 Ori scores 51 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the epic tier. Another 27 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 7 science badges — Star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), Naked-eye visible, In Orion's hunting ground, Hot blue B-type star, Bright giant 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.