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Rare star 42 EP

HR 3740

RA 140.8639° · Dec -60.3023° · star

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Score breakdown

· 6 badges
42 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Bright giant +12
  • Intrinsically luminous (Mv < −2) +10
  • Deep red star +8
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Star +3
  • Orange K-type star +3
Total score 42

8 more points to reach Epic.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • Orange K-type star · +3
  • Bright giant · +12
  • Deep red star · +8
  • Intrinsically luminous (Mv < −2) · +10

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads K1/K2II/III — a K-type star. Orange K dwarfs are the marathon runners of the galaxy, burning steadily for tens of billions 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 6.3 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Carina.
  • 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 February — 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 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).
  • Fastest probe ever. ≈ 3.4 million years even at the Parker Solar Probe's 192 km/s.

Properties

absmag
-2.805
bv
1.477
constellation
Car
dist ly
2159.9737
luminosity
1153.4533
mag
6.3
name
HR 3740
spect
K1/K2II/III

About HR 3740

HR 3740 is a rare star. It lies about 2,160 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Car, shines at apparent magnitude 6.3 and has spectral type K1/K2II/III.

Its spectrum reads K1/K2II/III — 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 HR 3740 in the constellation Car. At apparent magnitude 6.3, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HR 3740 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 3740 is a rare star

HR 3740 scores 42 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 8 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 6 science badges — Star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), Orange K-type star, Bright giant, Deep red star and Intrinsically luminous (Mv < −2) — 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.