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Rare exoplanet 35 EP

WD 1856+534 b

RA 284.4157° · Dec 53.5090° · exoplanet

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Score breakdown

· 5 badges
35 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Two suns in its sky +12
  • Tidally locked +10
  • Confirmed exoplanet +5
  • Gas giant +4
  • Found by TESS +4
Total score 35

15 more points to reach Epic.

Badges

  • Confirmed exoplanet · +5
  • Gas giant · +4
  • Tidally locked · +10
  • Found by TESS · +4
  • Two suns in its sky · +12

Trivia

Hard to believe

  • Denser than iron. It is packed tighter than solid iron — whatever it is made of, it is not ordinary rock.

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. Denser than Earth — a solid world of rock and iron, with no meaningful atmosphere to speak of by mass.

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 17.2 it is far too faint for the eye: this one belongs to cameras and long exposures.
  • Northern sky. It rides the northern half of the sky — an easier target the further north you are.
  • Best time of year. It stands highest in the middle of the night around July — that's when to go looking.

Could we get there?

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

Properties

density gcc
21.4
diameter km
132664.48
discovery facility
Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS)
discovery method
Transit
discovery year
2020
dist ly
80.6776
eccentricity
0
eq temp k
163
host star teff
4710
inclination
88.778
insolation
0.181
mag
17.244
mass earth
4386.054
multi star system
yes
name
WD 1856+534 b
orbital period days
1.4079
radius earth
10.4
semi major au
0.0204
spect
DC
sys num planets
1
sys num stars
3
tidally locked
yes
tidally locked inferred
yes

About WD 1856+534 b

WD 1856+534 b is a rare exoplanet. It lies about 80.7 light-years from Earth, shines at apparent magnitude 17.24, has spectral type DC and has an equilibrium temperature near 163 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 17.24, it takes a larger telescope or a long-exposure image to capture.

Like any astronomical target, WD 1856+534 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 WD 1856+534 b is a rare exoplanet

WD 1856+534 b scores 35 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 15 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 5 science badges — Confirmed exoplanet, Gas giant, Tidally locked, Found by TESS and Two suns in its sky — 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.