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Epic exoplanet 61 EP

K2-31 b

RA 245.4406° · Dec -23.5483° · exoplanet

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Score breakdown

· 7 badges
61 pts · Epic
Epic 78 pts → Anomaly
  • Lava world +14
  • Puffy low-density world +12
  • Two suns in its sky +12
  • Tidally locked +10
  • Confirmed exoplanet +5
  • Gas giant +4
  • Blasted by starlight +4
Total score 61

17 more points to reach Anomaly.

Badges

  • Confirmed exoplanet · +5
  • Gas giant · +4
  • Lava world · +14
  • Tidally locked · +10
  • Puffy low-density world · +12
  • Blasted by starlight · +4
  • Two suns in its sky · +12

Trivia

What makes it special

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

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 10.8 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 May — that's when to go looking.

Properties

density gcc
0.032
diameter km
151563.3005
discovery facility
K2
discovery method
Transit
discovery year
2016
dist ly
360.4904
eccentricity
0
eq temp k
1688
host star teff
5280
inclination
79.9
insolation
1272
mag
10.802
mass earth
563.8304
multi star system
yes
name
K2-31 b
orbital period days
1.2578
radius earth
11.8815
semi major au
0.022
spect
G7 V
sys num planets
1
sys num stars
2
tidally locked
yes
tidally locked inferred
yes

About K2-31 b

K2-31 b is an epic exoplanet. It lies about 360.5 light-years from Earth, shines at apparent magnitude 10.8, has spectral type G7 V and has an equilibrium temperature near 1,688 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 10.8, a small backyard telescope will bring it into view.

Like any astronomical target, K2-31 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 K2-31 b is an epic exoplanet

K2-31 b scores 61 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the epic tier. Another 17 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 7 science badges — Confirmed exoplanet, Gas giant, Lava world, Tidally locked, Puffy low-density world, Blasted by starlight 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.