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Uncommon star 26 EP

HD 55790

RA 105.8857° · Dec -78.7825° · star

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Score breakdown

· 5 badges
26 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Deep red star +8
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Giant star +6
  • Star +3
  • Orange K-type star +3
Total score 26

8 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • Orange K-type star · +3
  • Giant star · +6
  • Deep red star · +8

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads K3III — a K-type star. Orange K dwarfs are the marathon runners of the galaxy, burning steadily for tens of billions of years.
  • 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 8.7 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Mensa.
  • Southern sky only. So far south it never rises for most of the northern hemisphere. To see it you'd have to travel to Chile, South Africa or Australia.
  • 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. ≈ 38.2 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
-0.45
bv
1.434
constellation
Men
dist ly
2174.3734
luminosity
131.8257
mag
8.67
name
HD 55790
spect
K3III

About HD 55790

HD 55790 is an uncommon star. It lies about 2,174.4 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Men, shines at apparent magnitude 8.67 and has spectral type K3III.

Its spectrum reads K3III — a K-type star. Orange K dwarfs are the marathon runners of the galaxy, burning steadily for tens of billions of years.

How to see it

Look for HD 55790 in the constellation Men. At apparent magnitude 8.67, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 55790 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 55790 is an uncommon star

HD 55790 scores 26 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 8 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 5 science badges — Star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), Orange K-type star, Giant star and Deep red 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.