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Rare exoplanet 46 EP

TOI-3261 b

RA 47.7285° · Dec -73.5320° · exoplanet

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Score breakdown

· 6 badges
46 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Lava world +14
  • Ultra-short period +14
  • Confirmed exoplanet +5
  • Sub-Neptune +5
  • Blasted by starlight +4
  • Found by TESS +4
Total score 46

4 more points to reach Epic.

Badges

  • Confirmed exoplanet · +5
  • Sub-Neptune · +5
  • Lava world · +14
  • Ultra-short period · +14
  • Blasted by starlight · +4
  • Found by TESS · +4

Trivia

What makes it special

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

Hard to believe

  • A year in a day. Its entire year is over in 21.2 hours. Birthdays here would come round faster than meals.

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. Its density says rock, though lighter than Earth's mix: probably less iron, or a thick shell of water and ice over the top.

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 13.3 it is far too faint for the eye: this one belongs to cameras and long exposures.
  • Southern sky only. So far south it never rises for most of the northern hemisphere. To see it you'd have to travel to Chile, South Africa or Australia.
  • Best time of year. It stands highest in the middle of the night around November — that's when to go looking.

Properties

density gcc
3
diameter km
48728.684
discovery facility
Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS)
discovery method
Transit
discovery year
2024
dist ly
978.9279
eccentricity
0
eq temp k
1722
host star teff
5068
inclination
87.8
insolation
1466
mag
13.261
mass earth
30.3
name
TOI-3261 b
orbital period days
0.8831
radius earth
3.82
semi major au
0.0171
spect
K1.5+/-1
sys num planets
1
sys num stars
1
tidally locked
yes
tidally locked inferred
yes

About TOI-3261 b

TOI-3261 b is a rare exoplanet. It lies about 978.9 light-years from Earth, shines at apparent magnitude 13.26, has spectral type K1.5+/-1 and has an equilibrium temperature near 1,722 K.

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

How to see it

At apparent magnitude 13.26, it takes a larger telescope or a long-exposure image to capture.

Like any astronomical target, TOI-3261 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 TOI-3261 b is a rare exoplanet

TOI-3261 b scores 46 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 4 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 6 science badges — Confirmed exoplanet, Sub-Neptune, Lava world, Ultra-short period, Blasted by starlight and Found by TESS — 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.