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Uncommon star 25 EP

HD 107978

RA 186.1933° · Dec -60.8872° · star

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Score breakdown

· 5 badges
25 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Under the Southern Cross +8
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Hot blue B-type star +6
  • Star +3
  • Main-sequence star +2
Total score 25

9 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • Under the Southern Cross · +8
  • Hot blue B-type star · +6
  • Main-sequence star · +2

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads B9V — 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 9.1 you'll want a small backyard telescope, 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. Impossible with our current technology — and the next millennium of it.

Getting there

  • Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 31.3 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
0.392
bv
0.04
constellation
Cru
dist ly
1782.2733
luminosity
60.7016
mag
9.08
name
HD 107978
spect
B9V

About HD 107978

HD 107978 is an uncommon star. It lies about 1,782.3 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Cru, shines at apparent magnitude 9.08 and has spectral type B9V.

Its spectrum reads B9V — 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 HD 107978 in the constellation Cru. At apparent magnitude 9.08, a small backyard telescope will bring it into view.

Like any astronomical target, HD 107978 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 HD 107978 is an uncommon star

HD 107978 scores 25 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 9 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 5 science badges — Star, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), Under the Southern Cross, Hot blue B-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.