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Epic exoplanet 59 EP

LP 261-75 b

RA 147.7685° · Dec 35.9686° · exoplanet

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Score breakdown

· 6 badges
59 pts · Epic
Epic 78 pts → Anomaly
  • Directly imaged +16
  • Lava world +14
  • Orbits beyond Neptune's distance +12
  • Orbits a red dwarf +8
  • Confirmed exoplanet +5
  • Gas giant +4
Total score 59

19 more points to reach Anomaly.

Badges

  • Confirmed exoplanet · +5
  • Gas giant · +4
  • Lava world · +14
  • Directly imaged · +16
  • Orbits a red dwarf · +8
  • Orbits beyond Neptune's distance · +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

  • Denser than iron. It is packed tighter than solid iron — whatever it is made of, it is not ordinary rock.

What it actually is

  • What it is made of. Denser than Earth — a solid world of rock and iron, with no meaningful atmosphere to speak of by mass.

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 15.4 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 February — that's when to go looking.

Could we get there?

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

Properties

density gcc
20.7
diameter km
154350.02
discovery facility
Apache Point Observatory
discovery method
Imaging
discovery year
2006
dist ly
110.6582
eq temp k
1500
host star teff
3138
insolation
0
mag
15.436
mass earth
6674.3965
name
LP 261-75 b
radius earth
12.1
semi major au
450
spect
M4.5 V
sys num planets
1
sys num stars
1

About LP 261-75 b

LP 261-75 b is an epic exoplanet. It lies about 110.7 light-years from Earth, shines at apparent magnitude 15.44, has spectral type M4.5 V and has an equilibrium temperature near 1,500 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 15.44, it takes a larger telescope or a long-exposure image to capture.

Like any astronomical target, LP 261-75 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 LP 261-75 b is an epic exoplanet

LP 261-75 b scores 59 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the epic tier. Another 19 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 6 science badges — Confirmed exoplanet, Gas giant, Lava world, Directly imaged, Orbits a red dwarf and Orbits beyond Neptune's distance — 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.