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Common exoplanet 17 EP

HD 68402 b

RA 121.3475° · Dec -74.4101° · 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

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 9.1 you'll want a small backyard telescope.
  • Southern sky only. So far south it never rises for most of the northern hemisphere. To see it you'd have to travel to Chile, South Africa or Australia.
  • Best time of year. It stands highest in the middle of the night around January — 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. ≈ 4.5 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).
  • Fastest probe ever. ≈ 399.4 thousand years even at the Parker Solar Probe's 192 km/s.

Properties

density gcc
6.9
diameter km
160728.12
discovery facility
Multiple Observatories
discovery method
Radial Velocity
discovery year
2016
dist ly
255.8019
eccentricity
0.03
eq temp k
196.26
host star teff
5950
inclination
20.3
insolation
0.2462
mag
9.11
mass earth
2510.8444
name
HD 68402 b
orbital period days
1103
radius earth
12.6
semi major au
2.18
spect
G5 IV/V
sys num planets
1
sys num stars
1

About HD 68402 b

HD 68402 b is a common exoplanet. It lies about 255.8 light-years from Earth, shines at apparent magnitude 9.11, has spectral type G5 IV/V and has an equilibrium temperature near 196 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 9.11, a small backyard telescope will bring it into view.

Like any astronomical target, HD 68402 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 68402 b is a common exoplanet

HD 68402 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.