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Uncommon star 29 EP

Heze

RA 203.6733° · Dec -0.5958° · star

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Score breakdown

· 6 badges
29 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Naked-eye visible +8
  • Has a proper name +8
  • White A-type star +5
  • Star +3
  • On the zodiac +3
  • Main-sequence star +2
Total score 29

5 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Star · +3
  • Naked-eye visible · +8
  • Has a proper name · +8
  • On the zodiac · +3
  • White A-type star · +5
  • Main-sequence star · +2

Trivia

What it actually is

  • Spectral class. Its spectrum reads A3V — 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 3.4 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.

Getting there

  • Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 1.3 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

absmag
1.599
bv
0.114
constellation
Vir
dist ly
74.0759
luminosity
19.971
mag
3.38
name
Heze
named
yes
spect
A3V

About Heze

Heze is an uncommon star. It lies about 74.1 light-years from Earth, sits in the constellation Vir, shines at apparent magnitude 3.38 and has spectral type A3V.

Its spectrum reads A3V — 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 Heze in the constellation Vir. At apparent magnitude 3.38, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, Heze 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 Heze is an uncommon star

Heze scores 29 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 5 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 6 science badges — Star, Naked-eye visible, Has a proper name, On the zodiac, 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.