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Uncommon star 33 EP

Porrima

RA 190.4152° · Dec -1.4494° · star

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Score breakdown

· 7 badges
33 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Naked-eye visible +8
  • Has a proper name +8
  • Binary star +6
  • Star +3
  • On the zodiac +3
  • Yellow-white F-type star +3
  • Main-sequence star +2
Total score 33

1 more point to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Naked-eye visible · +8
  • Binary star · +6
  • Has a proper name · +8
  • On the zodiac · +3
  • Yellow-white F-type star · +3
  • Main-sequence star · +2

Trivia

What makes it special

  • Not one star but two. It is a binary: two stars orbiting a shared centre of mass. More than half of all the 'stars' you can see are actually multiple systems.

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads F0V+... — 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 2.7 you can see it with your own eyes from a dark site, 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 April — that's when to go looking.

Could we get there?

  • Verdict. Hopelessly far for any craft humanity can build today.

Properties

absmag
2.402
binary
yes
bv
0.368
constellation
Vir
dist ly
38.1113
luminosity
9.5324
mag
2.74
name
Porrima
named
yes
spect
F0V+...

About Porrima

Porrima is an uncommon star. It lies about 38.1 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Vir, shines at apparent magnitude 2.74 and has spectral type F0V+....

It is a binary: two stars orbiting a shared centre of mass. More than half of all the 'stars' you can see are actually multiple systems.

How to see it

Look for Porrima in the constellation Vir. At apparent magnitude 2.74, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, Porrima 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 Porrima is an uncommon star

Porrima scores 33 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 1 point would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 7 science badges — Star, Naked-eye visible, Binary star, Has a proper name, 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.