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Epic exoplanet 55 EP

PDS 70 b

RA 212.0421° · Dec -41.3980° · exoplanet

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Score breakdown

· 6 badges
55 pts · Epic
Epic 78 pts → Anomaly
  • Directly imaged +16
  • Lava world +14
  • Long-period world +10
  • Multi-planet system +6
  • Confirmed exoplanet +5
  • Gas giant +4
Total score 55

23 more points to reach Anomaly.

Badges

  • Confirmed exoplanet · +5
  • Gas giant · +4
  • Lava world · +14
  • Long-period world · +10
  • Multi-planet system · +6
  • Directly imaged · +16

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

  • 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 it is far too faint for the eye: this one belongs to cameras and long exposures.
  • 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 April — that's when to go looking.

Properties

density gcc
0.527
diameter km
280248.6392
discovery facility
Paranal Observatory
discovery method
Imaging
discovery year
2018
dist ly
368.765
eccentricity
0.17
eq temp k
1392
host star teff
4109
inclination
131
insolation
0.0008
mag
12.032
mass earth
1017.0509
name
PDS 70 b
orbital period days
43500
radius earth
21.9696
semi major au
20.8
spect
K7
sys num planets
2
sys num stars
1

About PDS 70 b

PDS 70 b is an epic exoplanet. It lies about 368.8 light-years from Earth, shines at apparent magnitude 12.03, has spectral type K7 and has an equilibrium temperature near 1,392 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 12.03, it takes a larger telescope or a long-exposure image to capture.

Like any astronomical target, PDS 70 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 PDS 70 b is an epic exoplanet

PDS 70 b scores 55 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the epic tier. Another 23 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 6 science badges — Confirmed exoplanet, Gas giant, Lava world, Long-period world, Multi-planet system and Directly imaged — 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.