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Rare star 34 EP

GL Gl 433.1

RA 174.2713° · Dec 29.7995° · star

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
34 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • White dwarf (a burnt-out core) +22
  • Blue-white star +5
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) +4
  • Star +3
Total score 34

16 more points to reach Epic.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) · +4
  • White dwarf (a burnt-out core) · +22
  • Blue-white star · +5

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads DA — a white dwarf — the exposed, Earth-sized cinder of a dead star, with nothing left to burn.

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 12.5 it is far too faint for the eye: this one belongs to cameras and long exposures, 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 March — 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. ≈ 906 thousand years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).
  • Fastest probe ever. ≈ 80.5 thousand years even at the Parker Solar Probe's 192 km/s.

Properties

absmag
11.496
bv
-0.072
constellation
UMa
dist ly
51.5581
luminosity
0.0022
mag
12.49
name
GL Gl 433.1
spect
DA

About GL Gl 433.1

GL Gl 433.1 is a rare star. It lies about 51.6 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation UMa, shines at apparent magnitude 12.49 and has spectral type DA.

Its spectrum reads DA — a white dwarf — the exposed, Earth-sized cinder of a dead star, with nothing left to burn.

How to see it

Look for GL Gl 433.1 in the constellation UMa. At apparent magnitude 12.49, it takes a larger telescope or a long-exposure image to capture.

Like any astronomical target, GL Gl 433.1 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 433.1 is a rare star

GL Gl 433.1 scores 34 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 16 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 4 science badges — Star, Never sets (northern circumpolar), White dwarf (a burnt-out core) 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.