← Back to dex
Common star 15 EP

HD 257662

RA 96.9105° · Dec 9.2099° · star

Loading sky survey…
🌌 View in 3D star map
Tonight’s visibility

Computing the sky for your location…

Score breakdown

· 3 badges
15 pts · Common
Common 22 pts → Uncommon
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Hot blue B-type star +6
  • Star +3
Total score 15

7 more points to reach Uncommon.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • Hot blue B-type star · +6

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads B5 — 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.

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 9.5 you'll want a small backyard telescope, over in Monoceros.
  • 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. ≈ 40.6 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).
  • Fastest probe ever. ≈ 3.6 million years even at the Parker Solar Probe's 192 km/s.

Properties

absmag
0.276
bv
0.08
constellation
Mon
dist ly
2313.1633
luminosity
67.5461
mag
9.53
name
HD 257662
spect
B5

About HD 257662

HD 257662 is a common star. It lies about 2,313.2 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Mon, shines at apparent magnitude 9.53 and has spectral type B5.

Its spectrum reads B5 — 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 257662 in the constellation Mon. At apparent magnitude 9.53, a small backyard telescope will bring it into view.

Like any astronomical target, HD 257662 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 257662 is a common star

HD 257662 scores 15 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the common tier. Another 7 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 3 science badges — Star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years) and Hot blue B-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.