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Epic exoplanet 73 EP

WASP-76 b

RA 26.6329° · Dec 2.7004° · exoplanet

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Score breakdown

· 7 badges
73 pts · Epic
Epic 78 pts → Anomaly
  • Ultra-hot Jupiter +26
  • Puffy low-density world +12
  • Two suns in its sky +12
  • Tidally locked +10
  • Confirmed exoplanet +5
  • Gas giant +4
  • Blasted by starlight +4
Total score 73

5 more points to reach Anomaly.

Badges

  • Confirmed exoplanet · +5
  • Gas giant · +4
  • Ultra-hot Jupiter · +26
  • Tidally locked · +10
  • Puffy low-density world · +12
  • Blasted by starlight · +4
  • Two suns in its sky · +12

Trivia

What makes it special

  • Ultra-hot Jupiter. So hot that iron vaporises on the dayside, blows around to the night side and rains back down as molten metal.

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 9.5 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.
  • Best time of year. It stands highest in the middle of the night around October — that's when to go looking.

Properties

density gcc
0.17
diameter km
265092.3353
discovery facility
SuperWASP
discovery method
Transit
discovery year
2016
dist ly
634.2397
eccentricity
0
eq temp k
2228
host star teff
6329
inclination
89.623
insolation
4104
mag
9.518
mass earth
284.1386
multi star system
yes
name
WASP-76 b
orbital period days
1.8099
radius earth
20.7815
semi major au
0.033
spect
F7
sys num planets
1
sys num stars
2
tidally locked
yes
tidally locked inferred
yes

About WASP-76 b

WASP-76 b is an epic exoplanet. It lies about 634.2 light-years from Earth, shines at apparent magnitude 9.52, has spectral type F7 and has an equilibrium temperature near 2,228 K.

So hot that iron vaporises on the dayside, blows around to the night side and rains back down as molten metal.

How to see it

At apparent magnitude 9.52, a small backyard telescope will bring it into view.

Like any astronomical target, WASP-76 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-76 b is an epic exoplanet

WASP-76 b scores 73 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the epic tier. Another 5 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 7 science badges — Confirmed exoplanet, Gas giant, Ultra-hot Jupiter, Tidally locked, Puffy low-density world, Blasted by starlight 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.