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Epic exoplanet 59 EP

Kepler-122 e

RA 291.1119° · Dec 39.9490° · exoplanet

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Score breakdown

· 7 badges
59 pts · Epic
Epic 78 pts → Anomaly
  • Denser than iron +18
  • Richly packed system +14
  • Orbits a Sun-like star +8
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Confirmed exoplanet +5
  • Sub-Neptune +5
  • Found by Kepler +3
Total score 59

19 more points to reach Anomaly.

Badges

  • Confirmed exoplanet · +5
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • Sub-Neptune · +5
  • Denser than iron · +18
  • Richly packed system · +14
  • Found by Kepler · +3
  • Orbits a Sun-like star · +8

Trivia

Hard to believe

  • Denser than iron. It is packed tighter than solid iron — whatever it is made of, it is not ordinary rock.

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. Denser than Earth — a solid world of rock and iron, with no meaningful atmosphere to speak of by mass.
  • Crowded system. One of at least 5 planets orbiting its star.

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 14.4 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 July — that's when to go looking.

Properties

density gcc
8.66
diameter km
33166.12
discovery facility
Kepler
discovery method
Transit
discovery year
2014
dist ly
3351.0898
eccentricity
0
eq temp k
618
host star teff
6050
inclination
89.97
insolation
36.299
mag
14.403
mass earth
27.7
name
Kepler-122 e
orbital period days
37.9933
radius earth
2.6
semi major au
0.227
sys num planets
5
sys num stars
1

About Kepler-122 e

Kepler-122 e is an epic exoplanet. It lies about 3,351.1 light-years from Earth, shines at apparent magnitude 14.4, has an equilibrium temperature near 618 K and spans roughly 2.6 Earth radii.

It orbits closer to its star than Mercury does to the Sun, completing a lap in less time than Mercury takes.

How to see it

At apparent magnitude 14.4, it takes a larger telescope or a long-exposure image to capture.

Like any astronomical target, Kepler-122 e 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 Kepler-122 e is an epic exoplanet

Kepler-122 e scores 59 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the epic tier. Another 19 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 7 science badges — Confirmed exoplanet, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), Sub-Neptune, Denser than iron, Richly packed system, Found by Kepler 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.