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Rare exoplanet 45 EP

WASP-52 b

RA 348.4948° · Dec 8.7611° · exoplanet

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Score breakdown

· 5 badges
45 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Lava world +14
  • Puffy low-density world +12
  • Tidally locked +10
  • Confirmed exoplanet +5
  • Gas giant +4
Total score 45

5 more points to reach Epic.

Badges

  • Confirmed exoplanet · +5
  • Gas giant · +4
  • Lava world · +14
  • Tidally locked · +10
  • Puffy low-density world · +12

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.
  • 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 September — that's when to go looking.

Properties

density gcc
0.29
diameter km
181648.288
discovery facility
SuperWASP
discovery method
Transit
discovery year
2012
dist ly
570.1794
eccentricity
0
eq temp k
1315
host star teff
5000
inclination
85.35
insolation
605.7625
mag
12.192
mass earth
146.2
name
WASP-52 b
orbital period days
1.7498
radius earth
14.24
semi major au
0.0272
spect
K2 V
sys num planets
1
sys num stars
1
tidally locked
yes
tidally locked inferred
yes

About WASP-52 b

WASP-52 b is a rare exoplanet. It lies about 570.2 light-years from Earth, shines at apparent magnitude 12.19, has spectral type K2 V and has an equilibrium temperature near 1,315 K.

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

How to see it

At apparent magnitude 12.19, it takes a larger telescope or a long-exposure image to capture.

Like any astronomical target, WASP-52 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-52 b is a rare exoplanet

WASP-52 b scores 45 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 5 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 5 science badges — Confirmed exoplanet, Gas giant, Lava world, Tidally locked and Puffy low-density world — 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.