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Rare exoplanet 45 EP

AB Pic b

RA 94.8039° · Dec -58.0541° · exoplanet

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Score breakdown

· 5 badges
45 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Directly imaged +16
  • Orbits beyond Neptune's distance +12
  • Frozen world +8
  • Confirmed exoplanet +5
  • Gas giant +4
Total score 45

5 more points to reach Epic.

Badges

  • Confirmed exoplanet · +5
  • Gas giant · +4
  • Frozen world · +8
  • Directly imaged · +16
  • Orbits beyond Neptune's distance · +12

Trivia

What makes it special

  • Frozen world. A deep-frozen world, too far from its star's warmth for anything to stay liquid.

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 9.1 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 December — that's when to go looking.

Could we get there?

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

Properties

density gcc
12.7
diameter km
156901.26
discovery facility
Paranal Observatory
discovery method
Imaging
discovery year
2005
dist ly
163.2329
eq temp k
15.8
host star teff
5285
insolation
0
mag
9.13
mass earth
4290.5
name
AB Pic b
radius earth
12.3
semi major au
260
spect
K2 V
sys num planets
1
sys num stars
1

About AB Pic b

AB Pic b is a rare exoplanet. It lies about 163.2 light-years from Earth, shines at apparent magnitude 9.13, has spectral type K2 V and has an equilibrium temperature near 16 K.

A deep-frozen world, too far from its star's warmth for anything to stay liquid.

How to see it

At apparent magnitude 9.13, a small backyard telescope will bring it into view.

Like any astronomical target, AB Pic 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 AB Pic b is a rare exoplanet

AB Pic b scores 45 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 5 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 5 science badges — Confirmed exoplanet, Gas giant, Frozen 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.