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Rare exoplanet 47 EP

HAT-P-61 b

RA 75.4802° · Dec 50.1312° · exoplanet

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Score breakdown

· 6 badges
47 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Lava world +14
  • Tidally locked +10
  • Orbits a Sun-like star +8
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Confirmed exoplanet +5
  • Gas giant +4
Total score 47

3 more points to reach Epic.

Badges

  • Confirmed exoplanet · +5
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • Gas giant · +4
  • Lava world · +14
  • Tidally locked · +10
  • Orbits a Sun-like star · +8

Trivia

What makes it special

  • Lava world. Its surface is almost certainly an ocean of molten rock, kept liquid by the star it hugs.

What it actually is

  • Hugging its star. It orbits closer to its star than Mercury does to the Sun, completing a lap in less time than Mercury takes.
  • What it is made of. Too light to be solid rock and too heavy to be all gas: most likely a deep global ocean or a thick steamy envelope over a rocky core.

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 13.1 it is far too faint for the eye: this one belongs to cameras and long exposures.
  • Northern sky. It rides the northern half of the sky — an easier target the further north you are.
  • Best time of year. It stands highest in the middle of the night around December — that's when to go looking.

Could we get there?

  • Verdict. Impossible with our current technology — and the next millennium of it.

Properties

density gcc
1.8
diameter km
128542.6157
discovery facility
HATNet
discovery method
Transit
discovery year
2021
dist ly
1105.147
eccentricity
0.113
eq temp k
1505
host star teff
5587
inclination
83.62
insolation
849.5
mag
13.096
mass earth
335.9446
name
HAT-P-61 b
orbital period days
1.9023
radius earth
10.0769
semi major au
0.0301
sys num planets
1
sys num stars
1
tidally locked
yes
tidally locked inferred
yes

About HAT-P-61 b

HAT-P-61 b is a rare exoplanet. It lies about 1,105.1 light-years from Earth, shines at apparent magnitude 13.1, has an equilibrium temperature near 1,505 K and spans roughly 10.08 Earth radii.

Its surface is almost certainly an ocean of molten rock, kept liquid by the star it hugs.

How to see it

At apparent magnitude 13.1, it takes a larger telescope or a long-exposure image to capture.

Like any astronomical target, HAT-P-61 b 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 HAT-P-61 b is a rare exoplanet

HAT-P-61 b scores 47 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 3 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 6 science badges — Confirmed exoplanet, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), Gas giant, Lava world, Tidally locked and Orbits a Sun-like 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.