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Uncommon star 26 EP

GL Gl 431.1A

RA 173.0865° · Dec 61.0825° · star

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Score breakdown

· 6 badges
26 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Naked-eye visible +8
  • Binary star +6
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) +4
  • Star +3
  • Yellow-white F-type star +3
  • Main-sequence star +2
Total score 26

8 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Naked-eye visible · +8
  • Binary star · +6
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) · +4
  • Yellow-white F-type star · +3
  • Main-sequence star · +2

Trivia

What makes it special

  • Not one star but two. It is a binary: two stars orbiting a shared centre of mass. More than half of all the 'stars' you can see are actually multiple systems.

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads F6V — an F-type star — a little hotter, whiter and shorter-lived than the Sun.
  • Where it is in life. It is on the main sequence, quietly fusing hydrogen in its core exactly as the Sun does.

Sense of scale

  • In perspective. Inside our stellar backyard: every radio broadcast humanity has ever made has already swept past it.

Find it in the sky

  • How to spot it. At magnitude 5.5 you can see it with your own eyes from a dark site, over in Ursa Major.
  • Never sets. So far north that from Britain, Canada or northern Europe it never dips below the horizon — it is up every clear night of the year.
  • Best time of year. It stands highest in the middle of the night around March — that's when to go looking.

Could we get there?

  • Verdict. Hopelessly far for any craft humanity can build today.

Properties

absmag
3.225
binary
yes
bv
0.515
constellation
UMa
dist ly
91.2836
luminosity
4.4668
mag
5.46
name
GL Gl 431.1A
spect
F6V

About GL Gl 431.1A

GL Gl 431.1A is an uncommon star. It lies about 91.3 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation UMa, shines at apparent magnitude 5.46 and has spectral type F6V.

It is a binary: two stars orbiting a shared centre of mass. More than half of all the 'stars' you can see are actually multiple systems.

How to see it

Look for GL Gl 431.1A in the constellation UMa. At apparent magnitude 5.46, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, GL Gl 431.1A 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 GL Gl 431.1A is an uncommon star

GL Gl 431.1A 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 6 science badges — Star, Naked-eye visible, Binary star, Never sets (northern circumpolar), Yellow-white F-type star and Main-sequence 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.