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Common exoplanet 21 EP

xi Aql b

RA 298.5624° · Dec 8.4611° · exoplanet

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Score breakdown

· 3 badges
21 pts · Common
Common 22 pts → Uncommon
  • Its star is visible to the naked eye +12
  • Confirmed exoplanet +5
  • Gas giant +4
Total score 21

1 more point to reach Uncommon.

Badges

  • Confirmed exoplanet · +5
  • Gas giant · +4
  • Its star is visible to the naked eye · +12

Trivia

What it actually is

  • 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 4.7 you can see it with your own eyes from a dark site.
  • 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 July — that's when to go looking.

Could we get there?

  • Verdict. Hopelessly far for any craft humanity can build today.

Getting there

  • Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 3.2 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).
  • Fastest probe ever. ≈ 286.1 thousand years even at the Parker Solar Probe's 192 km/s.

Properties

density gcc
1.41
diameter km
170933.08
discovery facility
Okayama Astrophysical Observatory
discovery method
Radial Velocity
discovery year
2007
dist ly
183.2534
eccentricity
0.059
eq temp k
973.07
host star teff
4841
insolation
149.8624
mag
4.7096
mass earth
616.9049
name
xi Aql b
orbital period days
136.97
radius earth
13.4
semi major au
0.625
spect
K0 III
sys num planets
1
sys num stars
1

About xi Aql b

xi Aql b is a common exoplanet. It lies about 183.3 light-years from Earth, shines at apparent magnitude 4.71, has spectral type K0 III and has an equilibrium temperature near 973 K.

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

How to see it

At apparent magnitude 4.71, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, xi Aql 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 xi Aql b is a common exoplanet

xi Aql b scores 21 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the common tier. Another 1 point would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 3 science badges — Confirmed exoplanet, Gas giant and Its star is visible to the naked eye — 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.