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Trash star 13 EP

HD 90438

RA 155.0620° · Dec -81.6484° · star

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Score breakdown

· 3 badges
13 pts · Trash
Trash 15 pts → Common
  • White A-type star +5
  • Subgiant (leaving the main sequence) +5
  • Star +3
Total score 13

2 more points to reach Common.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • White A-type star · +5
  • Subgiant (leaving the main sequence) · +5

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads A6/A7IV — 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 7.2 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Chamaeleon.
  • 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. Hopelessly far for any craft humanity can build today.

Getting there

  • Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 8.8 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).
  • Fastest probe ever. ≈ 778.7 thousand years even at the Parker Solar Probe's 192 km/s.

Properties

absmag
1.308
bv
0.239
constellation
Cha
dist ly
498.7095
luminosity
26.1096
mag
7.23
name
HD 90438
spect
A6/A7IV

About HD 90438

HD 90438 is a trash star. It lies about 498.7 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Cha, shines at apparent magnitude 7.23 and has spectral type A6/A7IV.

Its spectrum reads A6/A7IV — 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 90438 in the constellation Cha. At apparent magnitude 7.23, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 90438 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 90438 is a trash star

HD 90438 scores 13 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the trash tier. Another 2 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 3 science badges — Star, White A-type star and Subgiant (leaving the main sequence) — 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.