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Rare exoplanet 39 EP

WTS-1 b

RA 293.9850° · Dec 36.2963° · exoplanet

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Score breakdown

· 5 badges
39 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Lava world +14
  • Tidally locked +10
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Confirmed exoplanet +5
  • Gas giant +4
Total score 39

11 more points to reach Epic.

Badges

  • Confirmed exoplanet · +5
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • Gas giant · +4
  • Lava world · +14
  • Tidally locked · +10

Trivia

What makes it special

  • Lava world. Its surface is almost certainly an ocean of molten rock, kept liquid by the star it hugs.

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 16.6 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. Impossible with our current technology — and the next millennium of it.

Properties

density gcc
1.61
diameter km
213028.54
discovery facility
United Kingdom Infrared Telescope
discovery method
Transit
discovery year
2012
dist ly
7651.6524
eccentricity
0.1
eq temp k
1500
host star teff
6250
inclination
85.5
insolation
554.9183
mag
16.644
mass earth
1274.44
name
WTS-1 b
orbital period days
3.3521
radius earth
16.7
semi major au
0.047
spect
F6 V
sys num planets
1
sys num stars
1
tidally locked
yes
tidally locked inferred
yes

About WTS-1 b

WTS-1 b is a rare exoplanet. It lies about 7,651.7 light-years from Earth, shines at apparent magnitude 16.64, has spectral type F6 V and has an equilibrium temperature near 1,500 K.

Its surface is almost certainly an ocean of molten rock, kept liquid by the star it hugs.

How to see it

At apparent magnitude 16.64, it takes a larger telescope or a long-exposure image to capture.

Like any astronomical target, WTS-1 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 WTS-1 b is a rare exoplanet

WTS-1 b scores 39 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 11 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 5 science badges — Confirmed exoplanet, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), Gas giant, Lava world 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.