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Uncommon variable star 24 EP

HD 49977

RA 102.6103° · Dec -14.1134° · star

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Score breakdown

· 5 badges
24 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Hot blue B-type star +6
  • Variable star +5
  • Gently variable +4
  • A named variable star +3
Total score 24

10 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Variable star · +5
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • Hot blue B-type star · +6
  • Gently variable · +4
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads B6ne — 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.
  • It changes. This star does not hold still: its brightness rises and falls on a rhythm of hours, days or years, either pulsing in size or being eclipsed by a companion.

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 8 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Canis Major.
  • Southern sky. It rides the southern half of the sky — an easier target the further south you are.
  • Best time of year. It stands highest in the middle of the night around January — 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. ≈ 28.5 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
-0.514
bv
0.133
constellation
CMa
dist ly
1622.6665
luminosity
139.8299
mag
7.97
name
HD 49977
spect
B6ne
var amplitude
0.17
var designation
KU
var max
7.882
var min
8.052

About HD 49977

HD 49977 is an uncommon variable star. It lies about 1,622.7 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation CMa, shines at apparent magnitude 7.97 and has spectral type B6ne.

Its spectrum reads B6ne — 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 49977 in the constellation CMa. At apparent magnitude 7.97, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 49977 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 49977 is an uncommon variable star

HD 49977 scores 24 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 10 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 5 science badges — Variable star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), Hot blue B-type star, Gently variable and A named variable 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.