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Epic exoplanet 51 EP

DH Tau b

RA 67.4232° · Dec 26.5494° · exoplanet

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Score breakdown

· 5 badges
51 pts · Epic
Epic 78 pts → Anomaly
  • Directly imaged +16
  • Lava world +14
  • Orbits beyond Neptune's distance +12
  • Confirmed exoplanet +5
  • Gas giant +4
Total score 51

27 more points to reach Anomaly.

Badges

  • Confirmed exoplanet · +5
  • Gas giant · +4
  • Lava world · +14
  • Directly imaged · +16
  • Orbits beyond Neptune's distance · +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

  • 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 14 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 November — that's when to go looking.

Could we get there?

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

Properties

density gcc
0.693
diameter km
386057.4637
discovery facility
Subaru Telescope
discovery method
Imaging
discovery year
2004
dist ly
439.8083
eq temp k
2200
host star teff
4371
insolation
0
mag
13.98
mass earth
3496
name
DH Tau b
radius earth
30.2643
semi major au
330
spect
M0.5
sys num planets
1
sys num stars
1

About DH Tau b

DH Tau b is an epic exoplanet. It lies about 439.8 light-years from Earth, shines at apparent magnitude 13.98, has spectral type M0.5 and has an equilibrium temperature near 2,200 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 13.98, it takes a larger telescope or a long-exposure image to capture.

Like any astronomical target, DH Tau 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 DH Tau b is an epic exoplanet

DH Tau b scores 51 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the epic tier. Another 27 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 5 science badges — Confirmed exoplanet, Gas giant, Lava world, Directly imaged and Orbits beyond Neptune's distance — 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.