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Common exoplanet 17 EP

HD 38801 b

RA 86.9963° · Dec -8.3280° · exoplanet

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Score breakdown

· 3 badges
17 pts · Common
Common 22 pts → Uncommon
  • Orbits a Sun-like star +8
  • Confirmed exoplanet +5
  • Gas giant +4
Total score 17

5 more points to reach Uncommon.

Badges

  • Confirmed exoplanet · +5
  • Gas giant · +4
  • Orbits a Sun-like star · +8

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

  • 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 8.3 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in.
  • Seen from everywhere. It sits almost on the celestial equator, so it can be seen from essentially anywhere on Earth.
  • Best time of year. It stands highest in the middle of the night around December — that's when to go looking.

Could we get there?

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

Getting there

  • Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 5.2 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

density gcc
8.67
diameter km
159452.5
discovery facility
Subaru Telescope
discovery method
Radial Velocity
discovery year
2009
dist ly
298.2204
eccentricity
0.017
eq temp k
287.8
host star teff
5338
insolation
1.7311
mag
8.26
mass earth
3082.3153
name
HD 38801 b
orbital period days
685.25
radius earth
12.5
semi major au
1.623
spect
K0
sys num planets
1
sys num stars
1

Nearby objects

About HD 38801 b

HD 38801 b is a common exoplanet. It lies about 298.2 light-years from Earth, shines at apparent magnitude 8.26, has spectral type K0 and has an equilibrium temperature near 288 K.

Denser than Earth — a solid world of rock and iron, with no meaningful atmosphere to speak of by mass.

How to see it

At apparent magnitude 8.26, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 38801 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 38801 b is a common exoplanet

HD 38801 b scores 17 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the common tier. Another 5 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 3 science badges — Confirmed exoplanet, Gas giant and Orbits a Sun-like star — 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.