About Despina
Despina is an uncommon moon.
It orbits about 30.07 AU from the Sun — roughly 30.1 times Earth's distance.
Uncommon moon 30 EP
Despina
Position computed live · planets
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Live ephemeris
This object moves — fetching its current position…
Score breakdown
· 3 badgesUncommon 34 pts → Rare
- Moon +16
- Has a proper name +8
- Tidally locked +6
Total score 30
4 more points to reach Rare.
Badges
- Moon · +16
- Has a proper name · +8
- Tidally locked · +6
Trivia
Hard to believe
- A frantic orbit. It laps its entire planet in under a day — 8 hours — which is faster than most planets even turn on their axis.
What it actually is
- Its address. It orbits about 30.07 AU from the Sun — roughly 30.1 times Earth's distance.
- Almost a perfect circle. Its orbit is very nearly circular — rounder than Earth's, so it gets the same amount of sunlight all year round.
- Around its planet. It circles its planet at a distance of 52.5 thousand km — about 14% of the Earth–Moon gap — coming right round once every 8 hours.
Sense of scale
- Ground to cover. Its whole surface adds up to about 70.7 thousand km² — roughly 45 times the area of Greater London.
- Walk around it. Walking right round its equator, eight hours a day, would take about 11.8 days.
Time and light
- Sunrise is late. Sunlight takes about 4.2 hours to get there, against eight minutes to reach us.
Standing on it
- Sunlight there. Sunlight is about 904 times weaker than at Earth. From out here the Sun is barely a disc at all — just the most brilliant star in the sky.
Properties
- color
- #6f7480
- diameter km
- 150
- name
- Despina
- named
- yes
- radius km
- 75
- tidally locked
- yes
How to see it
Like any astronomical target, Despina 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. Because it moves against the background stars, the live position panel on this page tracks where it is right now. The visibility panel above works out tonight's viewing window for your saved location.
Why Despina is an uncommon moon
Despina scores 30 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 4 points would lift it into a rarer tier.
That score comes from 3 science badges — Moon, Has a proper name 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.