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Rare exoplanet 35 EP

HD 130322 b

RA 221.8858° · Dec -0.2821° · exoplanet

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Score breakdown

· 4 badges
35 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Found before the year 2000 +18
  • Orbits a Sun-like star +8
  • Confirmed exoplanet +5
  • Gas giant +4
Total score 35

15 more points to reach Epic.

Badges

  • Confirmed exoplanet · +5
  • Gas giant · +4
  • Orbits a Sun-like star · +8
  • Found before the year 2000 · +18

Trivia

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 8 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in.
  • Seen from everywhere. It sits almost on the celestial equator, so it can be seen from essentially anywhere on Earth.
  • Best time of year. It stands highest in the middle of the night around May — that's when to go looking.

Could we get there?

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

Properties

density gcc
0.781
diameter km
174759.94
discovery facility
La Silla Observatory
discovery method
Radial Velocity
discovery year
1999
dist ly
103.9674
eccentricity
0.029
eq temp k
720
host star teff
5387
insolation
67.9633
mag
8.04
mass earth
365.49
name
HD 130322 b
orbital period days
10.7087
radius earth
13.7
semi major au
0.0925
spect
K0 V
sys num planets
1
sys num stars
1

Nearby objects

About HD 130322 b

HD 130322 b is a rare exoplanet. It lies about 104 light-years from Earth, shines at apparent magnitude 8.04, has spectral type K0 V and has an equilibrium temperature near 720 K.

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 8.04, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 130322 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 130322 b is a rare exoplanet

HD 130322 b scores 35 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 15 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 4 science badges — Confirmed exoplanet, Gas giant, Orbits a Sun-like star and Found before the year 2000 — 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.