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Epic exoplanet 56 EP

K2-266 b

RA 157.9357° · Dec 0.9373° · exoplanet

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Score breakdown

· 6 badges
56 pts · Epic
Epic 78 pts → Anomaly
  • Lava world +14
  • Ultra-short period +14
  • Two suns in its sky +12
  • Multi-planet system +6
  • Confirmed exoplanet +5
  • Sub-Neptune +5
Total score 56

22 more points to reach Anomaly.

Badges

  • Confirmed exoplanet · +5
  • Sub-Neptune · +5
  • Lava world · +14
  • Ultra-short period · +14
  • Multi-planet system · +6
  • Two suns in its sky · +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

  • A year in a day. Its entire year is over in 15.8 hours. Birthdays here would come round faster than meals.

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. Too light to be solid rock and too heavy to be all gas: most likely a deep global ocean or a thick steamy envelope over a rocky core.
  • Crowded system. One of at least 4 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 11.6 you'll want a small backyard telescope.
  • Seen from everywhere. It sits almost on the celestial equator, so it can be seen from essentially anywhere on Earth.

Properties

density gcc
1.72
diameter km
42095.46
discovery facility
K2
discovery method
Transit
discovery year
2018
dist ly
252.962
eq temp k
1515
host star teff
4285
inclination
75.32
insolation
879.5
mag
11.625
mass earth
11.2678
multi star system
yes
name
K2-266 b
orbital period days
0.6585
radius earth
3.3
semi major au
0.0131
sys num planets
4
sys num stars
2
tidally locked
yes
tidally locked inferred
yes

About K2-266 b

K2-266 b is an epic exoplanet. It lies about 253 light-years from Earth, shines at apparent magnitude 11.63, has an equilibrium temperature near 1,515 K and spans roughly 3.3 Earth radii.

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

How to see it

At apparent magnitude 11.63, a small backyard telescope will bring it into view.

Like any astronomical target, K2-266 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 K2-266 b is an epic exoplanet

K2-266 b scores 56 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the epic tier. Another 22 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 6 science badges — Confirmed exoplanet, Sub-Neptune, Lava world, Ultra-short period, Multi-planet system and Two suns in its sky — 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.