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Uncommon star 32 EP

Zet Cru

RA 184.6095° · Dec -64.0031° · star

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Score breakdown

· 6 badges
32 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Naked-eye visible +8
  • Under the Southern Cross +8
  • Hot blue B-type star +6
  • Blue-white star +5
  • Star +3
  • Main-sequence star +2
Total score 32

2 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Naked-eye visible · +8
  • Under the Southern Cross · +8
  • Hot blue B-type star · +6
  • Main-sequence star · +2
  • Blue-white star · +5

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads B2.5V — a blue-white B-type star, with a surface tens of thousands of degrees hot and a life measured in tens of millions of years.
  • 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. 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 4.1 you can see it with your own eyes from a dark site, over in Crux.
  • Southern sky only. So far south it never rises for most of the northern hemisphere. To see it you'd have to travel to Chile, South Africa or Australia.
  • 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. ≈ 6.3 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
-1.14
bv
-0.168
constellation
Cru
dist ly
357.6271
luminosity
248.8857
mag
4.06
name
Zet Cru
spect
B2.5V

About Zet Cru

Zet Cru is an uncommon star. It lies about 357.6 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Cru, shines at apparent magnitude 4.06 and has spectral type B2.5V.

Its spectrum reads B2.5V — a blue-white B-type star, with a surface tens of thousands of degrees hot and a life measured in tens of millions of years.

How to see it

Look for Zet Cru in the constellation Cru. At apparent magnitude 4.06, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, Zet Cru 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 Zet Cru is an uncommon star

Zet Cru scores 32 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 2 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 6 science badges — Star, Naked-eye visible, Under the Southern Cross, Hot blue B-type star, Main-sequence star 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.