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Trash exoplanet 13 EP

TOI-1278 b

RA 320.4784° · Dec 35.6486° · exoplanet

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Score breakdown

· 3 badges
13 pts · Trash
Trash 15 pts → Common
  • Confirmed exoplanet +5
  • Gas giant +4
  • Found by TESS +4
Total score 13

2 more points to reach Common.

Badges

  • Confirmed exoplanet · +5
  • Gas giant · +4
  • Found by TESS · +4

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. 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 13.5 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 August — that's when to go looking.

Could we get there?

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

Properties

density gcc
18
diameter km
155852.5595
discovery facility
Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS)
discovery method
Transit
discovery year
2021
dist ly
246.4953
eccentricity
0.013
eq temp k
407.87
host star teff
3799
inclination
88.3
insolation
6.5402
mag
13.502
mass earth
5879.8255
name
TOI-1278 b
orbital period days
14.4757
radius earth
12.2178
semi major au
0.095
spect
M0 V
sys num planets
1
sys num stars
1

About TOI-1278 b

TOI-1278 b is a trash exoplanet. It lies about 246.5 light-years from Earth, shines at apparent magnitude 13.5, has spectral type M0 V and has an equilibrium temperature near 408 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 13.5, it takes a larger telescope or a long-exposure image to capture.

Like any astronomical target, TOI-1278 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 TOI-1278 b is a trash exoplanet

TOI-1278 b scores 13 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the trash tier. Another 2 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 3 science badges — Confirmed exoplanet, Gas giant and Found by TESS — 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.