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Uncommon star 25 EP

34The Gem

RA 103.1972° · Dec 33.9613° · star

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Score breakdown

· 5 badges
25 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Naked-eye visible +8
  • Giant star +6
  • White A-type star +5
  • Star +3
  • On the zodiac +3
Total score 25

9 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Naked-eye visible · +8
  • On the zodiac · +3
  • White A-type star · +5
  • Giant star · +6

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads A3III — an A-type star: white-hot, typically about twice the Sun's mass, and the class most of the sky's famous bright stars belong to.
  • Where it is in life. It is a giant. It has already exhausted its core hydrogen and swollen up enormously in response.

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 3.6 you can see it with your own eyes from a dark site, 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 January — 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. ≈ 3.3 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
-0.216
bv
0.102
constellation
Gem
dist ly
189.0759
luminosity
106.2674
mag
3.6
name
34The Gem
spect
A3III

About 34The Gem

34The Gem is an uncommon star. It lies about 189.1 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Gem, shines at apparent magnitude 3.6 and has spectral type A3III.

Its spectrum reads A3III — an A-type star: white-hot, typically about twice the Sun's mass, and the class most of the sky's famous bright stars belong to.

How to see it

Look for 34The Gem in the constellation Gem. At apparent magnitude 3.6, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, 34The Gem 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 34The Gem is an uncommon star

34The Gem scores 25 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 9 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 5 science badges — Star, Naked-eye visible, On the zodiac, White A-type star and Giant 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.