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Common exoplanet 16 EP

K2-171 b

RA 332.3408° · Dec -13.4289° · exoplanet

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Score breakdown

· 3 badges
16 pts · Common
Common 22 pts → Uncommon
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Confirmed exoplanet +5
  • Sub-Neptune +5
Total score 16

6 more points to reach Uncommon.

Badges

  • Confirmed exoplanet · +5
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • Sub-Neptune · +5

Trivia

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. Too light to be solid rock and too heavy to be all gas: most likely a deep global ocean or a thick steamy envelope over a rocky core.

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 12.7 it is far too faint for the eye: this one belongs to cameras and long exposures.
  • 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 August — that's when to go looking.

Could we get there?

  • Verdict. Impossible with our current technology — and the next millennium of it.

Getting there

  • Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 34.7 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

density gcc
2.18
diameter km
34270.4504
discovery facility
K2
discovery method
Transit
discovery year
2018
dist ly
1976.9228
host star teff
5250
inclination
85.0482
mag
12.745
mass earth
7.69
name
K2-171 b
orbital period days
5.6285
radius earth
2.6866
sys num planets
1
sys num stars
1

About K2-171 b

K2-171 b is a common exoplanet. It lies about 1,976.9 light-years from Earth, shines at apparent magnitude 12.74, spans roughly 2.69 Earth radii and weighs about 7.69 Earth masses.

It orbits closer to its star than Mercury does to the Sun, completing a lap in less time than Mercury takes.

How to see it

At apparent magnitude 12.74, it takes a larger telescope or a long-exposure image to capture.

Like any astronomical target, K2-171 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 K2-171 b is a common exoplanet

K2-171 b scores 16 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the common tier. Another 6 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 3 science badges — Confirmed exoplanet, Distant (over 1,000 light-years) and Sub-Neptune — 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.