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Trash star 14 EP

HD 47278

RA 99.3834° · Dec -8.2356° · star

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Score breakdown

· 3 badges
14 pts · Trash
Trash 15 pts → Common
  • Hot blue B-type star +6
  • Blue-white star +5
  • Star +3
Total score 14

1 more point to reach Common.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Hot blue B-type star · +6
  • Blue-white star · +5

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads B9 — 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 7.2 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, 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. Hopelessly far for any craft humanity can build today.

Getting there

  • Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 13.7 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).
  • Fastest probe ever. ≈ 1.2 million years even at the Parker Solar Probe's 192 km/s.

Properties

absmag
0.326
bv
-0.007
constellation
Mon
dist ly
780.2773
luminosity
64.506
mag
7.22
name
HD 47278
spect
B9

About HD 47278

HD 47278 is a trash star. It lies about 780.3 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Mon, shines at apparent magnitude 7.22 and has spectral type B9.

Its spectrum reads B9 — 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 47278 in the constellation Mon. At apparent magnitude 7.22, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 47278 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 47278 is a trash star

HD 47278 scores 14 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the trash tier. Another 1 point would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 3 science badges — Star, Hot blue B-type star and Blue-white 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.