Epic exoplanet 63 EP

WASP-178 b

RA 227.2703° · Dec -42.7050° · exoplanet

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Score breakdown

· 6 badges

63 pts · Epic

Epic 68 pts → Anomaly

Ultra-hot Jupiter +26
Hot Jupiter +10
Distant (>1000 ly) +10
Blasted by starlight +8
Confirmed exoplanet +5
Gas giant +4

Total score 63

5 more points to reach Anomaly.

Badges

Confirmed exoplanet · +5
Gas giant · +4
Hot Jupiter · +10
Ultra-hot Jupiter · +26
Blasted by starlight · +8
Distant (>1000 ly) · +10

Trivia

What makes it special

Ultra-hot Jupiter. So hot that iron vaporises and rains back down as molten metal.

Could we get there?

Verdict. Impossible with our current technology — and the next millennium of it.

Getting there

Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 24.5 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).
Fastest probe ever. ≈ 2.2 million years even at the Parker Solar Probe's 192 km/s.
At 10% light speed. ≈ 13.9 thousand years in a starship at a tenth of light speed.
Distance. 1395 light-years from Earth.

Look-back time

Look-back time. The light you'd see left around the year 631.

Saying hello

Say hello. A radio message and its reply would take 2790 years round-trip.

Standing on it

A year here. A full year lasts just 3.3 Earth days.

By the numbers

Size. About 20.3× the width of Earth.
Volume. About 8351 Earths could fit inside it.
Mass. Roughly 528× Earth's mass — about 1.7 Jupiters.
Your weight. You'd weigh about 1.3× your Earth weight standing here.
Density. Less dense than water — drop it in a big enough ocean and it would float.
Temperature. Around 2470 K — hot enough to vaporise iron.

How we found it

Discovery. Found by WASP-South using the transit method.

Properties

density gcc: 0.37
discovery facility: WASP-South
discovery method: Transit
dist ly: 1394.8975
eccentricity: 0
eq temp k: 2470
insolation: 5550
mass earth: 527.5978
name: WASP-178 b
orbital period days: 3.3448
radius earth: 20.2883
sys num planets: 1

About WASP-178 b

WASP-178 b is an epic exoplanet. It lies about 1,394.9 light-years from Earth, has an equilibrium temperature near 2,470 K, spans roughly 20.29 Earth radii and weighs about 527.6 Earth masses.

So hot that iron vaporises and rains back down as molten metal.

How to see it

Like any astronomical target, WASP-178 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-178 b is an epic exoplanet

WASP-178 b scores 63 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the epic tier. Another 5 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 6 science badges — Confirmed exoplanet, Gas giant, Hot Jupiter, Ultra-hot Jupiter, Blasted by starlight and Distant (>1000 ly) — 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.