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Common star 18 EP

Iot Cen

RA 200.1494° · Dec -36.7123° · star

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
18 pts · Common
Common 22 pts → Uncommon
  • Naked-eye visible +8
  • White A-type star +5
  • Star +3
  • Main-sequence star +2
Total score 18

4 more points to reach Uncommon.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Naked-eye visible · +8
  • White A-type star · +5
  • Main-sequence star · +2

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads A2V — 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 2.8 you can see it with your own eyes from a dark site, over in Centaurus.
  • Southern sky. It rides the southern half of the sky — an easier target the further south you are.
  • 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.

Getting there

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

Properties

absmag
1.471
bv
0.068
constellation
Cen
dist ly
58.7776
luminosity
22.4698
mag
2.75
name
Iot Cen
spect
A2V

About Iot Cen

Iot Cen is a common star. It lies about 58.8 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Cen, shines at apparent magnitude 2.75 and has spectral type A2V.

Its spectrum reads A2V — 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 Iot Cen in the constellation Cen. At apparent magnitude 2.75, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, Iot Cen 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 Iot Cen is a common star

Iot Cen scores 18 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the common tier. Another 4 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 4 science badges — Star, Naked-eye visible, 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.