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Trash star 11 EP

72 Vir

RA 202.6072° · Dec -6.4703° · 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 F2V — 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. 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 6.1 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 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. ≈ 3.1 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
2.47
bv
0.341
constellation
Vir
dist ly
173.5796
luminosity
8.9536
mag
6.1
name
72 Vir
spect
F2V

About 72 Vir

72 Vir is a trash star. It lies about 173.6 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Vir, shines at apparent magnitude 6.1 and has spectral type F2V.

Its spectrum reads F2V — an F-type star — a little hotter, whiter and shorter-lived than the Sun.

How to see it

Look for 72 Vir in the constellation Vir. At apparent magnitude 6.1, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, 72 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 72 Vir is a trash star

72 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.