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Rare star 39 EP

HD 97848

RA 168.6329° · Dec -59.0247° · star

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
39 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Blazing O-type star +26
  • Subgiant (leaving the main sequence) +5
  • Blue-white star +5
  • Star +3
Total score 39

11 more points to reach Epic.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Blazing O-type star · +26
  • Subgiant (leaving the main sequence) · +5
  • Blue-white star · +5

Trivia

Hard to believe

  • True brightness. It pours out about 2.9 million times as much light as the Sun. It only looks ordinary because it is so far away.

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads O9IV — an O-type star — the hottest, rarest main class there is. Fewer than one star in a million is an O, and none of them lasts long.
  • Where it is in life. It is a subgiant, caught in the act of leaving the main sequence as the hydrogen in its core runs out.

Find it in the sky

  • How to spot it. At magnitude 8.7 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Carina.
  • 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 March — that's when to go looking.

Its true colour

  • Its true colour. Measured through blue and visual filters it comes out blue-white (B−V -0) — the hallmark of a surface far hotter than the Sun's.
  • Why no green stars. No star ever looks green: a surface hot enough to peak in green also floods out plenty of red and blue, and your eye blends the mixture back to white.

Properties

absmag
-11.32
bv
-0.011
constellation
Car
luminosity
2937649.652
mag
8.68
name
HD 97848
spect
O9IV

About HD 97848

HD 97848 is a rare star. It sits in the constellation Car, shines at apparent magnitude 8.68 and has spectral type O9IV.

Its spectrum reads O9IV — an O-type star — the hottest, rarest main class there is. Fewer than one star in a million is an O, and none of them lasts long.

How to see it

Look for HD 97848 in the constellation Car. At apparent magnitude 8.68, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 97848 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 97848 is a rare star

HD 97848 scores 39 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 11 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 4 science badges — Star, Blazing O-type star, Subgiant (leaving the main sequence) 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.