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Epic exoplanet 50 EP

pi Men c

RA 84.2993° · Dec -80.4646° · exoplanet

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Score breakdown

· 7 badges
50 pts · Epic
Epic 78 pts → Anomaly
  • Its star is visible to the naked eye +12
  • Tidally locked +10
  • Orbits a Sun-like star +8
  • Multi-planet system +6
  • Confirmed exoplanet +5
  • Sub-Neptune +5
  • Found by TESS +4
Total score 50

28 more points to reach Anomaly.

Badges

  • Confirmed exoplanet · +5
  • Sub-Neptune · +5
  • Tidally locked · +10
  • Multi-planet system · +6
  • Found by TESS · +4
  • Its star is visible to the naked eye · +12
  • Orbits a Sun-like star · +8

Trivia

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. 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.
  • Crowded system. One of at least 3 planets orbiting its star.

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 5.7 you can see it with your own eyes from a dark site.
  • Southern sky only. So far south it never rises for most of the northern hemisphere. To see it you'd have to travel to Chile, South Africa or Australia.
  • 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.

Properties

density gcc
2.8
diameter km
25753.4922
discovery facility
Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS)
discovery method
Transit
discovery year
2018
dist ly
59.5894
eccentricity
0
eq temp k
1169.8
host star teff
5998
inclination
87.045
insolation
309
mag
5.65
mass earth
3.63
name
pi Men c
orbital period days
6.2678
radius earth
2.0189
semi major au
0.0684
spect
G0 V
sys num planets
3
sys num stars
1
tidally locked
yes
tidally locked inferred
yes

About pi Men c

pi Men c is an epic exoplanet. It lies about 59.6 light-years from Earth, shines at apparent magnitude 5.65, has spectral type G0 V and has an equilibrium temperature near 1,170 K.

It orbits closer to its star than Mercury does to the Sun, completing a lap in less time than Mercury takes.

How to see it

At apparent magnitude 5.65, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, pi Men c 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 pi Men c is an epic exoplanet

pi Men c scores 50 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the epic tier. Another 28 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 7 science badges — Confirmed exoplanet, Sub-Neptune, Tidally locked, Multi-planet system, Found by TESS, Its star is visible to the naked eye 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.