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Rare exoplanet 41 EP

HAT-P-26 b

RA 213.1566° · Dec 4.0594° · exoplanet

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Score breakdown

· 5 badges
41 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Puffy low-density world +12
  • Hot Jupiter +10
  • Tidally locked +10
  • Confirmed exoplanet +5
  • Gas giant +4
Total score 41

9 more points to reach Epic.

Badges

  • Confirmed exoplanet · +5
  • Gas giant · +4
  • Hot Jupiter · +10
  • Tidally locked · +10
  • Puffy low-density world · +12

Trivia

Hard to believe

  • It would float. It is less dense than water. Drop it in a big enough ocean and the whole world would bob on the surface.

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. Lighter than Neptune — a puffed-up ball of hydrogen and helium with no surface anywhere on it to stand on.

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 11.8 you'll want a small backyard telescope.
  • 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 April — that's when to go looking.

Could we get there?

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

Properties

density gcc
0.2586
diameter km
90080.0749
discovery facility
HATNet
discovery method
Transit
discovery year
2010
dist ly
462.6099
eccentricity
0.12
eq temp k
1080
host star teff
5079
inclination
88.6
insolation
185.0743
mag
11.757
mass earth
22.2481
name
HAT-P-26 b
orbital period days
4.2345
radius earth
7.0617
semi major au
0.0475
spect
K1
sys num planets
1
sys num stars
1
tidally locked
yes
tidally locked inferred
yes

About HAT-P-26 b

HAT-P-26 b is a rare exoplanet. It lies about 462.6 light-years from Earth, shines at apparent magnitude 11.76, has spectral type K1 and has an equilibrium temperature near 1,080 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 11.76, a small backyard telescope will bring it into view.

Like any astronomical target, HAT-P-26 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 HAT-P-26 b is a rare exoplanet

HAT-P-26 b scores 41 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 9 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 5 science badges — Confirmed exoplanet, Gas giant, Hot Jupiter, Tidally locked and Puffy low-density world — 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.