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Trash star 11 EP

17 Vir

RA 185.6335° · Dec 5.3054° · star

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
11 pts · Trash
Trash 15 pts → Common
  • Star +3
  • On the zodiac +3
  • Yellow-white F-type star +3
  • Main-sequence star +2
Total score 11

4 more points to reach Common.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • On the zodiac · +3
  • Yellow-white F-type star · +3
  • Main-sequence star · +2

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads F8V — 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 6.5 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in, over in Virgo.
  • Seen from everywhere. It sits almost on the celestial equator, so it can be seen from essentially anywhere on Earth.
  • 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. ≈ 1.7 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
4.08
bv
0.567
constellation
Vir
dist ly
97.5931
luminosity
2.0324
mag
6.46
name
17 Vir
spect
F8V

About 17 Vir

17 Vir is a trash star. It lies about 97.6 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Vir, shines at apparent magnitude 6.46 and has spectral type F8V.

Its spectrum reads F8V — an F-type star — a little hotter, whiter and shorter-lived than the Sun.

How to see it

Look for 17 Vir in the constellation Vir. At apparent magnitude 6.46, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, 17 Vir 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 17 Vir is a trash star

17 Vir scores 11 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the trash tier. Another 4 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 4 science badges — Star, On the zodiac, 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.