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Rare exoplanet 49 EP

AF Lep b

RA 81.7699° · Dec -11.9012° · exoplanet

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Score breakdown

· 5 badges
49 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Directly imaged +16
  • Lava world +14
  • Long-period world +10
  • Confirmed exoplanet +5
  • Gas giant +4
Total score 49

1 more point to reach Epic.

Badges

  • Confirmed exoplanet · +5
  • Gas giant · +4
  • Lava world · +14
  • Long-period world · +10
  • Directly imaged · +16

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

  • 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.

Sense of scale

  • In perspective. Inside our stellar backyard: every radio broadcast humanity has ever made has already swept past it.

Find it in the sky

  • How to spot it. At magnitude 6.3 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in.
  • 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 December — that's when to go looking.

Could we get there?

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

Getting there

  • Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 1.5 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

density gcc
2.87
diameter km
165830.6
discovery facility
Paranal Observatory
discovery method
Imaging
discovery year
2023
dist ly
87.5938
eccentricity
0.015
eq temp k
1400
host star teff
6140
inclination
57.5
insolation
0.0241
mag
6.332
mass earth
1147.3605
name
AF Lep b
orbital period days
8905
radius earth
13
semi major au
8.996
spect
F8
sys num planets
1
sys num stars
1

About AF Lep b

AF Lep b is a rare exoplanet. It lies about 87.6 light-years from Earth, shines at apparent magnitude 6.33, has spectral type F8 and has an equilibrium temperature near 1,400 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 6.33, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, AF Lep 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 AF Lep b is a rare exoplanet

AF Lep 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 5 science badges — Confirmed exoplanet, Gas giant, Lava world, Long-period world and Directly imaged — 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.