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Uncommon star 26 EP

31 UMa

RA 148.9292° · Dec 49.8198° · star

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Score breakdown

· 5 badges
26 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Naked-eye visible +8
  • Giant star +6
  • White A-type star +5
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) +4
  • Star +3
Total score 26

8 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Naked-eye visible · +8
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) · +4
  • White A-type star · +5
  • Giant star · +6

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads A3III — 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.
  • 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 5.3 you can see it with your own eyes from a dark site, over in Ursa Major.
  • Northern sky. It rides the northern half of the sky — an easier target the further north you are.
  • 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. Hopelessly far for any craft humanity can build today.

Getting there

  • Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 3.7 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
1.247
bv
0.086
constellation
UMa
dist ly
208.0076
luminosity
27.6185
mag
5.27
name
31 UMa
spect
A3III

About 31 UMa

31 UMa is an uncommon star. It lies about 208 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation UMa, shines at apparent magnitude 5.27 and has spectral type A3III.

Its spectrum reads A3III — 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 31 UMa in the constellation UMa. At apparent magnitude 5.27, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, 31 UMa 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 31 UMa is an uncommon star

31 UMa 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, Naked-eye visible, Never sets (northern circumpolar), White A-type star and Giant 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.