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Uncommon star 26 EP

HD 70263

RA 124.9402° · Dec -33.6011° · star

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Score breakdown

· 5 badges
26 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Hot blue B-type star +6
  • Giant star +6
  • Blue-white star +5
  • Star +3
Total score 26

8 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • Hot blue B-type star · +6
  • Giant star · +6
  • Blue-white star · +5

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads B8/B9III/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.

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 9 you'll want a small backyard telescope, over in Puppis.
  • 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. ≈ 36.7 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).
  • Fastest probe ever. ≈ 3.3 million years even at the Parker Solar Probe's 192 km/s.

Properties

absmag
-0.004
bv
-0.026
constellation
Pup
dist ly
2090.7435
luminosity
87.4178
mag
9.03
name
HD 70263
spect
B8/B9III/IV

About HD 70263

HD 70263 is an uncommon star. It lies about 2,090.7 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Pup, shines at apparent magnitude 9.03 and has spectral type B8/B9III/IV.

Its spectrum reads B8/B9III/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 HD 70263 in the constellation Pup. At apparent magnitude 9.03, a small backyard telescope will bring it into view.

Like any astronomical target, HD 70263 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 70263 is an uncommon star

HD 70263 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), Hot blue B-type star, Giant star and Blue-white 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.