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Uncommon star 30 EP

Megrez

RA 183.8563° · Dec 57.0326° · star

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Score breakdown

· 6 badges
30 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Naked-eye visible +8
  • Has a proper name +8
  • White A-type star +5
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) +4
  • Star +3
  • Main-sequence star +2
Total score 30

4 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Naked-eye visible · +8
  • Has a proper name · +8
  • Never sets (northern circumpolar) · +4
  • White A-type star · +5
  • Main-sequence star · +2

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads A3Vvar — 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.
  • 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 3.3 you can see it with your own eyes from a dark site, 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. ≈ 1.4 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
1.358
bv
0.077
constellation
UMa
dist ly
80.5126
luminosity
24.9345
mag
3.32
name
Megrez
named
yes
spect
A3Vvar

About Megrez

Megrez is an uncommon star. It lies about 80.5 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation UMa, shines at apparent magnitude 3.32 and has spectral type A3Vvar.

Its spectrum reads A3Vvar — 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 Megrez in the constellation UMa. At apparent magnitude 3.32, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, Megrez 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 Megrez is an uncommon star

Megrez scores 30 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 4 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 6 science badges — Star, Naked-eye visible, Has a proper name, Never sets (northern circumpolar), White A-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.