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Uncommon exoplanet 26 EP

Kepler-396 c

RA 296.1328° · Dec 48.9773° · exoplanet

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Score breakdown

· 5 badges
26 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Orbits a Sun-like star +8
  • Multi-planet system +6
  • Confirmed exoplanet +5
  • Neptune-like +4
  • Found by Kepler +3
Total score 26

8 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Confirmed exoplanet · +5
  • Neptune-like · +4
  • Multi-planet system · +6
  • Found by Kepler · +3
  • Orbits a Sun-like star · +8

Trivia

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

  • 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.
  • Crowded system. One of at least 2 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 12.3 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.

Could we get there?

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

Properties

density gcc
0.661
diameter km
67607.86
discovery facility
Kepler
discovery method
Transit
discovery year
2013
dist ly
729.7969
eccentricity
0
eq temp k
390
host star teff
5656
inclination
90
insolation
5.244
mag
12.259
mass earth
17.9
name
Kepler-396 c
orbital period days
88.505
radius earth
5.3
semi major au
0.3895
sys num planets
2
sys num stars
1

About Kepler-396 c

Kepler-396 c is an uncommon exoplanet. It lies about 729.8 light-years from Earth, shines at apparent magnitude 12.26, has an equilibrium temperature near 390 K and spans roughly 5.3 Earth radii.

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 12.26, it takes a larger telescope or a long-exposure image to capture.

Like any astronomical target, Kepler-396 c 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-396 c is an uncommon exoplanet

Kepler-396 c scores 26 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 8 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 5 science badges — Confirmed exoplanet, Neptune-like, Multi-planet 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.