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Rare exoplanet 43 EP

WASP-188 b

RA 278.7820° · Dec 36.6156° · exoplanet

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Score breakdown

· 6 badges
43 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Lava world +14
  • Tidally locked +10
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Confirmed exoplanet +5
  • Gas giant +4
  • Blasted by starlight +4
Total score 43

7 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
  • Blasted by starlight · +4

Trivia

What makes it special

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

Hard to believe

  • It would float. It is less dense than water. Drop it in a big enough ocean and the whole world would bob on the surface.

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. Lighter than Neptune — a puffed-up ball of hydrogen and helium with no surface anywhere on it to stand on.

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 12.2 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 June — that's when to go looking.

Properties

density gcc
0.78
diameter km
189024.8475
discovery facility
SuperWASP
discovery method
Transit
discovery year
2025
dist ly
2202.4695
eccentricity
0
eq temp k
1666
host star teff
6850
inclination
85.88
insolation
1278
mag
12.165
mass earth
458.6264
name
WASP-188 b
orbital period days
5.7489
radius earth
14.8183
semi major au
0.072
sys num planets
1
sys num stars
1
tidally locked
yes
tidally locked inferred
yes

About WASP-188 b

WASP-188 b is a rare exoplanet. It lies about 2,202.5 light-years from Earth, shines at apparent magnitude 12.16, has an equilibrium temperature near 1,666 K and spans roughly 14.82 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 12.16, it takes a larger telescope or a long-exposure image to capture.

Like any astronomical target, WASP-188 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 WASP-188 b is a rare exoplanet

WASP-188 b scores 43 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 7 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 Blasted by starlight — 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.