About Luhman 16 b
Luhman 16 b is an epic exoplanet. It spans roughly 11.9 Earth radii, weighs about 9,344.16 Earth masses, completes an orbit every 9,697 days and belongs to a system of 1 known planets.
Packed denser than solid iron.
Epic exoplanet 53 EP
Luhman 16 b
RA 162.3283° · Dec -53.3194° · exoplanet
Score breakdown
· 5 badgesEpic 68 pts → Anomaly
- Denser than iron +18
- Directly imaged +16
- Long-period world +10
- Confirmed exoplanet +5
- Gas giant +4
Total score 53
15 more points to reach Anomaly.
Badges
- Confirmed exoplanet · +5
- Gas giant · +4
- Long-period world · +10
- Denser than iron · +18
- Directly imaged · +16
Trivia
What makes it special
- Heavyweight. Packed denser than solid iron.
Standing on it
- A year here. A full year lasts about 26.5 Earth years.
By the numbers
- Size. About 11.9× the width of Earth.
- Volume. About 1685 Earths could fit inside it.
- Mass. Roughly 9344× Earth's mass — about 29.4 Jupiters.
- Your weight. You'd weigh about 66.0× your Earth weight standing here.
- Density. Denser than solid iron.
How we found it
- Discovery. Found by Multiple Observatories using the imaging method.
Properties
- density gcc
- 30.5
- discovery facility
- Multiple Observatories
- discovery method
- Imaging
- eccentricity
- 0.344
- insolation
- 0
- mass earth
- 9344.1552
- name
- Luhman 16 b
- orbital period days
- 9697
- radius earth
- 11.9
- sys num planets
- 1
How to see it
Like any astronomical target, Luhman 16 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 Luhman 16 b is an epic exoplanet
Luhman 16 b scores 53 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the epic tier. Another 15 points would lift it into a rarer tier.
That score comes from 5 science badges — Confirmed exoplanet, Gas giant, Long-period world, Denser than iron and Directly imaged — 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.