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Rare exoplanet 49 EP

WASP-87 b

RA 185.3247° · Dec -52.8408° · exoplanet

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Score breakdown

· 6 badges
49 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Lava world +14
  • Two suns in its sky +12
  • Tidally locked +10
  • Confirmed exoplanet +5
  • Gas giant +4
  • Blasted by starlight +4
Total score 49

1 more point to reach Epic.

Badges

  • Confirmed exoplanet · +5
  • Gas giant · +4
  • Lava world · +14
  • Tidally locked · +10
  • Blasted by starlight · +4
  • Two suns in its sky · +12

Trivia

What makes it special

  • Lava world. Its surface is almost certainly an ocean of molten rock, kept liquid by the star it hugs.

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 10.7 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 March — that's when to go looking.

Could we get there?

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

Properties

density gcc
1.02
diameter km
198033.1804
discovery facility
Anglo-Australian Telescope
discovery method
Transit
discovery year
2016
dist ly
973.2234
eccentricity
0
eq temp k
2049.54
host star teff
6450
inclination
81.07
insolation
4170.0965
mag
10.727
mass earth
692.8694
multi star system
yes
name
WASP-87 b
orbital period days
1.6828
radius earth
15.5245
semi major au
0.0295
sys num planets
1
sys num stars
2
tidally locked
yes
tidally locked inferred
yes

About WASP-87 b

WASP-87 b is a rare exoplanet. It lies about 973.2 light-years from Earth, shines at apparent magnitude 10.73, has an equilibrium temperature near 2,050 K and spans roughly 15.52 Earth radii.

Its surface is almost certainly an ocean of molten rock, kept liquid by the star it hugs.

How to see it

At apparent magnitude 10.73, a small backyard telescope will bring it into view.

Like any astronomical target, WASP-87 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 WASP-87 b is a rare exoplanet

WASP-87 b scores 49 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 1 point would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 6 science badges — Confirmed exoplanet, Gas giant, Lava world, Tidally locked, Blasted by starlight and Two suns in its sky — 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.