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Rare exoplanet 34 EP

NGTS-4 b

RA 89.5989° · Dec -30.8118° · exoplanet

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
34 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Lava world +14
  • Tidally locked +10
  • Confirmed exoplanet +5
  • Sub-Neptune +5
Total score 34

16 more points to reach Epic.

Badges

  • Confirmed exoplanet · +5
  • Sub-Neptune · +5
  • Lava world · +14
  • Tidally locked · +10

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

  • 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. Its density says rock, though lighter than Earth's mix: probably less iron, or a thick shell of water and ice over the top.

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 13.1 it is far too faint for the eye: this one belongs to cameras and long exposures.
  • 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.

Properties

density gcc
3.45
diameter km
40564.716
discovery facility
Next-Generation Transit Survey (NGTS)
discovery method
Transit
discovery year
2019
dist ly
915.047
eccentricity
0
eq temp k
1650
host star teff
5143
inclination
82.5
insolation
886.9841
mag
13.138
mass earth
20.6
name
NGTS-4 b
orbital period days
1.3374
radius earth
3.18
semi major au
0.019
sys num planets
1
sys num stars
1
tidally locked
yes
tidally locked inferred
yes

About NGTS-4 b

NGTS-4 b is a rare exoplanet. It lies about 915 light-years from Earth, shines at apparent magnitude 13.14, has an equilibrium temperature near 1,650 K and spans roughly 3.18 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 13.14, it takes a larger telescope or a long-exposure image to capture.

Like any astronomical target, NGTS-4 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 NGTS-4 b is a rare exoplanet

NGTS-4 b scores 34 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 16 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 4 science badges — Confirmed exoplanet, Sub-Neptune, Lava world and Tidally locked — 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.