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Epic exoplanet 61 EP

WASP-121 b

RA 107.6002° · Dec -39.0973° · exoplanet

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Score breakdown

· 6 badges
61 pts · Epic
Epic 78 pts → Anomaly
  • Ultra-hot Jupiter +26
  • Puffy low-density world +12
  • Tidally locked +10
  • Confirmed exoplanet +5
  • Gas giant +4
  • Blasted by starlight +4
Total score 61

17 more points to reach Anomaly.

Badges

  • Confirmed exoplanet · +5
  • Gas giant · +4
  • Ultra-hot Jupiter · +26
  • Tidally locked · +10
  • Puffy low-density world · +12
  • Blasted by starlight · +4

Trivia

What makes it special

  • Ultra-hot Jupiter. So hot that iron vaporises on the dayside, blows around to the night side and rains back down as molten metal.

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 10.5 you'll want a small backyard telescope.
  • Southern sky. It rides the southern half of the sky — an easier target the further south you are.
  • Best time of year. It stands highest in the middle of the night around January — that's when to go looking.

Properties

density gcc
0.275
diameter km
249078.1273
discovery facility
SuperWASP
discovery method
Transit
discovery year
2016
dist ly
880.2885
eccentricity
0.0085
eq temp k
2409
host star teff
6628
inclination
88.49
insolation
6216.41
mag
10.514
mass earth
371.8592
name
WASP-121 b
orbital period days
1.2749
radius earth
19.526
semi major au
0.0257
spect
F6 V
sys num planets
1
sys num stars
1
tidally locked
yes
tidally locked inferred
yes

About WASP-121 b

WASP-121 b is an epic exoplanet. It lies about 880.3 light-years from Earth, shines at apparent magnitude 10.51, has spectral type F6 V and has an equilibrium temperature near 2,409 K.

So hot that iron vaporises on the dayside, blows around to the night side and rains back down as molten metal.

How to see it

At apparent magnitude 10.51, a small backyard telescope will bring it into view.

Like any astronomical target, WASP-121 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-121 b is an epic exoplanet

WASP-121 b scores 61 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the epic tier. Another 17 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 6 science badges — Confirmed exoplanet, Gas giant, Ultra-hot Jupiter, Tidally locked, Puffy low-density world 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.