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Rare exoplanet 37 EP

HAT-P-38 b

RA 35.3835° · Dec 32.2460° · exoplanet

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Score breakdown

· 5 badges
37 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Hot Jupiter +10
  • Tidally locked +10
  • Orbits a Sun-like star +8
  • Confirmed exoplanet +5
  • Gas giant +4
Total score 37

13 more points to reach Epic.

Badges

  • Confirmed exoplanet · +5
  • Gas giant · +4
  • Hot Jupiter · +10
  • Tidally locked · +10
  • Orbits a Sun-like star · +8

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 12.5 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 October — that's when to go looking.

Could we get there?

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

Properties

density gcc
0.59
diameter km
117956.5814
discovery facility
HATNet
discovery method
Transit
discovery year
2012
dist ly
832.3697
eccentricity
0.067
eq temp k
1082
host star teff
5330
inclination
88.3
insolation
243.0337
mag
12.525
mass earth
84.857
name
HAT-P-38 b
orbital period days
4.6404
radius earth
9.247
semi major au
0.0523
spect
G5
sys num planets
1
sys num stars
1
tidally locked
yes
tidally locked inferred
yes

About HAT-P-38 b

HAT-P-38 b is a rare exoplanet. It lies about 832.4 light-years from Earth, shines at apparent magnitude 12.53, has spectral type G5 and has an equilibrium temperature near 1,082 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 12.53, it takes a larger telescope or a long-exposure image to capture.

Like any astronomical target, HAT-P-38 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 HAT-P-38 b is a rare exoplanet

HAT-P-38 b scores 37 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 13 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 5 science badges — Confirmed exoplanet, Gas giant, Hot Jupiter, Tidally locked 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.