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Rare exoplanet 47 EP

CoRoT-12 b

RA 100.7657° · Dec -1.2964° · exoplanet

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Score breakdown

· 6 badges
47 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Lava world +14
  • Tidally locked +10
  • Orbits a Sun-like star +8
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Confirmed exoplanet +5
  • Gas giant +4
Total score 47

3 more points to reach Epic.

Badges

  • Confirmed exoplanet · +5
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • Gas giant · +4
  • Lava world · +14
  • Tidally locked · +10
  • Orbits a Sun-like star · +8

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

  • 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. Lighter than Neptune — a puffed-up ball of hydrogen and helium with no surface anywhere on it to stand on.

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 15.6 it is far too faint for the eye: this one belongs to cameras and long exposures.
  • Seen from everywhere. It sits almost on the celestial equator, so it can be seen from essentially anywhere on Earth.
  • Best time of year. It stands highest in the middle of the night around December — that's when to go looking.

Properties

density gcc
0.411
diameter km
205885.068
discovery facility
CoRoT
discovery method
Transit
discovery year
2010
dist ly
3673.7233
eccentricity
0.07
eq temp k
1442
host star teff
5675
inclination
85.48
insolation
661.1334
mag
15.588
mass earth
291.438
name
CoRoT-12 b
orbital period days
2.828
radius earth
16.14
semi major au
0.0402
sys num planets
1
sys num stars
1
tidally locked
yes
tidally locked inferred
yes

About CoRoT-12 b

CoRoT-12 b is a rare exoplanet. It lies about 3,673.7 light-years from Earth, shines at apparent magnitude 15.59, has an equilibrium temperature near 1,442 K and spans roughly 16.14 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 15.59, it takes a larger telescope or a long-exposure image to capture.

Like any astronomical target, CoRoT-12 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 CoRoT-12 b is a rare exoplanet

CoRoT-12 b scores 47 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 3 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 6 science badges — Confirmed exoplanet, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), Gas giant, Lava world, Tidally locked 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.