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Trash star 14 EP

HD 55388

RA 108.1433° · Dec -2.5599° · star

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Score breakdown

· 3 badges
14 pts · Trash
Trash 15 pts → Common
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • White A-type star +5
  • Star +3
Total score 14

1 more point to reach Common.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • White A-type star · +5

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads A0 — 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.

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 8.2 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 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. ≈ 29.4 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).
  • Fastest probe ever. ≈ 2.6 million years even at the Parker Solar Probe's 192 km/s.

Properties

absmag
-0.36
bv
0.002
constellation
Mon
dist ly
1672.5948
luminosity
121.3389
mag
8.19
name
HD 55388
spect
A0

Nearby objects

About HD 55388

HD 55388 is a trash star. It lies about 1,672.6 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Mon, shines at apparent magnitude 8.19 and has spectral type A0.

Its spectrum reads A0 — 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 HD 55388 in the constellation Mon. At apparent magnitude 8.19, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 55388 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 55388 is a trash star

HD 55388 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, Distant (over 1,000 light-years) and White A-type 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.