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Rare variable star 41 EP

HR 2640

RA 105.2748° · Dec -25.2156° · star

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Score breakdown

· 8 badges
41 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Naked-eye visible +8
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Hot blue B-type star +6
  • Giant star +6
  • Variable star +5
  • Blue-white star +5
  • A named variable star +3
  • Barely variable (under 0.05 mag) +2
Total score 41

9 more points to reach Epic.

Badges

  • Variable star · +5
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • Naked-eye visible · +8
  • Hot blue B-type star · +6
  • Giant star · +6
  • Blue-white star · +5
  • Barely variable (under 0.05 mag) · +2
  • A named variable star · +3

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads B2/B3III/IV — 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 5.6 you can see it with your own eyes from a dark site, 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. ≈ 17.9 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
-1.834
bv
-0.165
constellation
CMa
dist ly
1019.2375
luminosity
471.6285
mag
5.64
name
HR 2640
spect
B2/B3III/IV
var amplitude
0.03
var designation
LS
var max
5.629
var min
5.659

About HR 2640

HR 2640 is a rare variable star. It lies about 1,019.2 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation CMa, shines at apparent magnitude 5.64 and has spectral type B2/B3III/IV.

Its spectrum reads B2/B3III/IV — 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 HR 2640 in the constellation CMa. At apparent magnitude 5.64, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, HR 2640 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 HR 2640 is a rare variable star

HR 2640 scores 41 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 9 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 8 science badges — Variable star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), Naked-eye visible, Hot blue B-type star, Giant star, Blue-white star, Barely variable (under 0.05 mag) 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.