Rare exoplanet 41 EP

HD 102956 b

RA 177.8437° · Dec 57.6407° · exoplanet

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Score breakdown

· 5 badges

41 pts · Rare

Rare 46 pts → Epic

Lava world +14
Hot Jupiter +10
Blasted by starlight +8
Confirmed exoplanet +5
Gas giant +4

Total score 41

5 more points to reach Epic.

Badges

Confirmed exoplanet · +5
Gas giant · +4
Hot Jupiter · +10
Lava world · +14
Blasted by starlight · +8

Trivia

What makes it special

Lava world. Its surface is likely an ocean of molten rock.

Could we get there?

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

Getting there

Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 7 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).
Fastest probe ever. ≈ 620.7 thousand years even at the Parker Solar Probe's 192 km/s.
At 10% light speed. ≈ 3976 years in a starship at a tenth of light speed.
Distance. 398 light-years from Earth.

Look-back time

Look-back time. The light you'd see left around the year 1628.

Saying hello

Say hello. A radio message and its reply would take 795 years round-trip.

Standing on it

A year here. A full year lasts just 6.5 Earth days.

By the numbers

Size. About 13.8× the width of Earth.
Volume. About 2628 Earths could fit inside it.
Mass. Roughly 305× Earth's mass — about 1 Jupiters.
Your weight. You'd weigh about 1.6× your Earth weight standing here.
Density. Less dense than water — drop it in a big enough ocean and it would float.
Temperature. Around 1532°C — hotter than a self-cleaning oven.

How we found it

Discovery. Found by W. M. Keck Observatory using the radial velocity method.

Properties

density gcc: 0.638
discovery facility: W. M. Keck Observatory
discovery method: Radial Velocity
dist ly: 397.5515
eccentricity: 0.037
eq temp k: 1804.96
insolation: 1781.1928
mass earth: 305.1168
name: HD 102956 b
orbital period days: 6.4947
radius earth: 13.8
sys num planets: 1

About HD 102956 b

HD 102956 b is a rare exoplanet. It lies about 397.6 light-years from Earth, has an equilibrium temperature near 1,805 K, spans roughly 13.8 Earth radii and weighs about 305.12 Earth masses.

Its surface is likely an ocean of molten rock.

How to see it

Like any astronomical target, HD 102956 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 HD 102956 b is a rare exoplanet

HD 102956 b scores 41 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 5 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 5 science badges — Confirmed exoplanet, Gas giant, Hot Jupiter, Lava world and Blasted by starlight — 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.