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Rare exoplanet 49 EP

WASP-98 b

RA 58.4290° · Dec -34.3283° · exoplanet

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Score breakdown

· 6 badges
49 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Two suns in its sky +12
  • Hot Jupiter +10
  • Tidally locked +10
  • Orbits a Sun-like star +8
  • Confirmed exoplanet +5
  • Gas giant +4
Total score 49

1 more point to reach Epic.

Badges

  • Confirmed exoplanet · +5
  • Gas giant · +4
  • Hot Jupiter · +10
  • Tidally locked · +10
  • Orbits a Sun-like star · +8
  • Two suns in its sky · +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 13.3 it is far too faint for the eye: this one belongs to cameras and long exposures.
  • Southern sky. It rides the southern half of the sky — an easier target the further south you are.
  • Best time of year. It stands highest in the middle of the night around November — that's when to go looking.

Could we get there?

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

Properties

density gcc
0.764
diameter km
163573.9772
discovery facility
SuperWASP
discovery method
Transit
discovery year
2014
dist ly
918.9184
eccentricity
0
eq temp k
1171
host star teff
5473
inclination
86.38
insolation
269.8828
mag
13.252
mass earth
293.0393
multi star system
yes
name
WASP-98 b
orbital period days
2.9626
radius earth
12.8231
semi major au
0.0376
spect
G7
sys num planets
1
sys num stars
2
tidally locked
yes
tidally locked inferred
yes

About WASP-98 b

WASP-98 b is a rare exoplanet. It lies about 918.9 light-years from Earth, shines at apparent magnitude 13.25, has spectral type G7 and has an equilibrium temperature near 1,171 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 13.25, it takes a larger telescope or a long-exposure image to capture.

Like any astronomical target, WASP-98 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-98 b is a rare exoplanet

WASP-98 b scores 49 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 1 point would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 6 science badges — Confirmed exoplanet, Gas giant, Hot Jupiter, Tidally locked, Orbits a Sun-like star 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.