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Rare exoplanet 37 EP

WASP-43 b

RA 154.9082° · Dec -9.8064° · exoplanet

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
37 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Lava world +14
  • Ultra-short period +14
  • Confirmed exoplanet +5
  • Gas giant +4
Total score 37

13 more points to reach Epic.

Badges

  • Confirmed exoplanet · +5
  • Gas giant · +4
  • Lava world · +14
  • Ultra-short period · +14

Trivia

What makes it special

  • Lava world. Its surface is almost certainly an ocean of molten rock, kept liquid by the star it hugs.

Hard to believe

  • A year in a day. Its entire year is over in 19.5 hours. Birthdays here would come round faster than meals.

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.

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 12.3 it is far too faint for the eye: this one belongs to cameras and long exposures.
  • 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 February — that's when to go looking.

Properties

density gcc
2.939
diameter km
132970.6288
discovery facility
SuperWASP
discovery method
Transit
discovery year
2011
dist ly
282.9296
eccentricity
0
eq temp k
1426.7
host star teff
4400
inclination
82.6
insolation
680.8953
mag
12.305
mass earth
565.714
name
WASP-43 b
orbital period days
0.8135
radius earth
10.424
semi major au
0.0142
spect
K7 V
sys num planets
1
sys num stars
1
tidally locked
yes
tidally locked inferred
yes

About WASP-43 b

WASP-43 b is a rare exoplanet. It lies about 282.9 light-years from Earth, shines at apparent magnitude 12.3, has spectral type K7 V and has an equilibrium temperature near 1,427 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 12.3, it takes a larger telescope or a long-exposure image to capture.

Like any astronomical target, WASP-43 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-43 b is a rare exoplanet

WASP-43 b scores 37 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 13 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 4 science badges — Confirmed exoplanet, Gas giant, Lava world and Ultra-short period — 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.