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Epic exoplanet 53 EP

WASP-55 b

RA 203.7582° · Dec -17.5035° · exoplanet

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Score breakdown

· 6 badges
53 pts · Epic
Epic 78 pts → Anomaly
  • Lava world +14
  • Two suns in its sky +12
  • Tidally locked +10
  • Orbits a Sun-like star +8
  • Confirmed exoplanet +5
  • Gas giant +4
Total score 53

25 more points to reach Anomaly.

Badges

  • Confirmed exoplanet · +5
  • Gas giant · +4
  • Lava world · +14
  • Tidally locked · +10
  • Orbits a Sun-like star · +8
  • 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

  • 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 11.8 you'll want a small backyard telescope.
  • 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
0.3422
diameter km
187880.9755
discovery facility
SuperWASP
discovery method
Transit
discovery year
2012
dist ly
970.1902
eccentricity
0
eq temp k
1342
host star teff
6096
inclination
88.74
insolation
504
mag
11.753
mass earth
186.2474
multi star system
yes
name
WASP-55 b
orbital period days
4.4656
radius earth
14.7286
semi major au
0.0558
sys num planets
1
sys num stars
2
tidally locked
yes
tidally locked inferred
yes

About WASP-55 b

WASP-55 b is an epic exoplanet. It lies about 970.2 light-years from Earth, shines at apparent magnitude 11.75, has an equilibrium temperature near 1,342 K and spans roughly 14.73 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 11.75, a small backyard telescope will bring it into view.

Like any astronomical target, WASP-55 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 WASP-55 b is an epic exoplanet

WASP-55 b scores 53 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the epic tier. Another 25 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 6 science badges — Confirmed exoplanet, Gas giant, Lava world, Tidally locked, Orbits a Sun-like star 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.