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Rare exoplanet 49 EP

Kepler-656 b

RA 288.3279° · Dec 47.3815° · exoplanet

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Score breakdown

· 7 badges
49 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Lava world +14
  • Tidally locked +10
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Multi-planet system +6
  • Confirmed exoplanet +5
  • Sub-Neptune +5
  • Found by Kepler +3
Total score 49

1 more point to reach Epic.

Badges

  • Confirmed exoplanet · +5
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • Sub-Neptune · +5
  • Lava world · +14
  • Tidally locked · +10
  • Multi-planet system · +6
  • Found by Kepler · +3

Trivia

What makes it special

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

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 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 15.5 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.

Properties

density gcc
1.79
diameter km
39799.344
discovery facility
Kepler
discovery method
Transit
discovery year
2016
dist ly
2903.9365
eccentricity
0
eq temp k
1569
host star teff
5281
inclination
77.17
insolation
924.374
mag
15.549
mass earth
9.91
name
Kepler-656 b
orbital period days
1.2603
radius earth
3.12
semi major au
0.0223
sys num planets
2
sys num stars
1
tidally locked
yes
tidally locked inferred
yes

About Kepler-656 b

Kepler-656 b is a rare exoplanet. It lies about 2,903.9 light-years from Earth, shines at apparent magnitude 15.55, has an equilibrium temperature near 1,569 K and spans roughly 3.12 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 15.55, it takes a larger telescope or a long-exposure image to capture.

Like any astronomical target, Kepler-656 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 Kepler-656 b is a rare exoplanet

Kepler-656 b scores 49 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 1 point would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 7 science badges — Confirmed exoplanet, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), Sub-Neptune, Lava world, Tidally locked, Multi-planet system and Found by Kepler — 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.