About HIP 59242
HIP 59242 is a trash star. It lies about 1,331.2 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Hya and shines at apparent magnitude 11.03.
Its colour puts the surface at roughly 5520 K, against the Sun's 5778 K.
Trash star 9 EP
HIP 59242
RA 182.2823° · Dec -35.1872° · star
Score breakdown
· 2 badgesTrash 15 pts → Common
- Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
- Star +3
Total score 9
6 more points to reach Common.
Badges
- Star · +3
- Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
Trivia
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 11 you'll want a small backyard telescope, over in Hydra.
- 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.
Could we get there?
- Verdict. Impossible with our current technology — and the next millennium of it.
Getting there
- Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 23.4 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).
- Fastest probe ever. ≈ 2.1 million years even at the Parker Solar Probe's 192 km/s.
- At 10% light speed. ≈ 13.3 thousand years in a starship at a tenth of light speed.
Properties
- absmag
- 2.976
- bv
- 0.724
- constellation
- Hya
- dist ly
- 1331.2491
- luminosity
- 5.6182
- mag
- 11.03
- name
- HIP 59242
How to see it
Look for HIP 59242 in the constellation Hya. At apparent magnitude 11.03, a small backyard telescope will bring it into view.
Like any astronomical target, HIP 59242 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 HIP 59242 is a trash star
HIP 59242 scores 9 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the trash tier. Another 6 points would lift it into a rarer tier.
That score comes from 2 science badges — Star and Distant (over 1,000 light-years) — 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.