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Epic exoplanet 53 EP

alf Tau b

RA 68.9802° · Dec 16.5092° · exoplanet

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Score breakdown

· 6 badges
53 pts · Epic
Epic 78 pts → Anomaly
  • Its star is visible to the naked eye +12
  • Two suns in its sky +12
  • Hot Jupiter +10
  • Disputed — it may not be there at all +10
  • Confirmed exoplanet +5
  • Gas giant +4
Total score 53

25 more points to reach Anomaly.

Badges

  • Confirmed exoplanet · +5
  • Gas giant · +4
  • Hot Jupiter · +10
  • Its star is visible to the naked eye · +12
  • Two suns in its sky · +12
  • Disputed — it may not be there at all · +10

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. Inside our stellar backyard: every radio broadcast humanity has ever made has already swept past it.

Find it in the sky

  • How to spot it. At magnitude 0.9 it is one of the brightest points in the night sky — impossible to miss.
  • 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 November — 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. ≈ 1.2 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).
  • Fastest probe ever. ≈ 104.1 thousand years even at the Parker Solar Probe's 192 km/s.

Properties

controversial
yes
density gcc
5.52
diameter km
162003.74
discovery facility
Multiple Observatories
discovery method
Radial Velocity
discovery year
2015
dist ly
66.6441
eccentricity
0.1
eq temp k
1086.77
host star teff
4055
insolation
220.442
mag
0.872
mass earth
2056.3601
multi star system
yes
name
alf Tau b
orbital period days
628.96
radius earth
12.7
semi major au
1.46
spect
K5 III
sys num planets
1
sys num stars
2

About alf Tau b

alf Tau b is an epic exoplanet. It lies about 66.6 light-years from Earth, shines at apparent magnitude 0.87, has spectral type K5 III and has an equilibrium temperature near 1,087 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 0.87, it can be glimpsed with the unaided eye under dark skies.

Like any astronomical target, alf Tau 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 alf Tau b is an epic exoplanet

alf Tau b scores 53 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the epic tier. Another 25 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 6 science badges — Confirmed exoplanet, Gas giant, Hot Jupiter, Its star is visible to the naked eye, Two suns in its sky and Disputed — it may not be there at all — 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.