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Common exoplanet 19 EP

HD 162020 b

RA 267.6599° · Dec -40.3185° · exoplanet

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Score breakdown

· 3 badges
19 pts · Common
Common 22 pts → Uncommon
  • Tidally locked +10
  • Confirmed exoplanet +5
  • Gas giant +4
Total score 19

3 more points to reach Uncommon.

Badges

  • Confirmed exoplanet · +5
  • Gas giant · +4
  • Tidally locked · +10

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

Could we get there?

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

Properties

density gcc
8.8
diameter km
159452.5
discovery facility
La Silla Observatory
discovery method
Radial Velocity
discovery year
2002
dist ly
100.5369
eccentricity
0.28
eq temp k
650
host star teff
4723
insolation
39.0625
mag
9.1
mass earth
3127.4472
name
HD 162020 b
orbital period days
8.4282
radius earth
12.5
semi major au
0.08
spect
K3 V
sys num planets
1
sys num stars
1
tidally locked
yes
tidally locked inferred
yes

About HD 162020 b

HD 162020 b is a common exoplanet. It lies about 100.5 light-years from Earth, shines at apparent magnitude 9.1, has spectral type K3 V and has an equilibrium temperature near 650 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 9.1, a small backyard telescope will bring it into view.

Like any astronomical target, HD 162020 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 HD 162020 b is a common exoplanet

HD 162020 b scores 19 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the common tier. Another 3 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 3 science badges — Confirmed exoplanet, Gas giant and Tidally locked — 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.