Epic exoplanet 55 EP

WASP-31 b

RA 169.4389° · Dec -19.0548° · exoplanet

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Score breakdown

· 6 badges

55 pts · Epic

Epic 68 pts → Anomaly

Lava world +14
Puffy low-density world +12
Hot Jupiter +10
Distant (>1000 ly) +10
Confirmed exoplanet +5
Gas giant +4

Total score 55

13 more points to reach Anomaly.

Badges

Confirmed exoplanet · +5
Gas giant · +4
Hot Jupiter · +10
Lava world · +14
Puffy low-density world · +12
Distant (>1000 ly) · +10

Trivia

What makes it special

Lava world. Its surface is likely an ocean of molten rock.
Cotton-candy planet. So low-density it would float on water.

Could we get there?

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

Getting there

Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 22 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).
Fastest probe ever. ≈ 2 million years even at the Parker Solar Probe's 192 km/s.
At 10% light speed. ≈ 12.5 thousand years in a starship at a tenth of light speed.
Distance. 1252 light-years from Earth.

Look-back time

Look-back time. The light you'd see left around the year 774.

Saying hello

Say hello. A radio message and its reply would take 2504 years round-trip.

Standing on it

A year here. A full year lasts just 3.4 Earth days.

By the numbers

Size. About 17.4× the width of Earth.
Volume. About 5234 Earths could fit inside it.
Mass. Roughly 152× Earth's mass — about 0.5 Jupiters.
Your weight. You'd weigh about 0.5× your Earth weight standing here.
Density. Less dense than water — drop it in a big enough ocean and it would float.
Temperature. Around 1151°C — hotter than a self-cleaning oven.

How we found it

Discovery. Found by SuperWASP using the transit method.

Properties

density gcc: 0.172
discovery facility: SuperWASP
discovery method: Transit
dist ly: 1251.8813
eccentricity: 0
eq temp k: 1423.7
insolation: 970.9417
mass earth: 151.916
name: WASP-31 b
orbital period days: 3.4059
radius earth: 17.363
sys num planets: 1

About WASP-31 b

WASP-31 b is an epic exoplanet. It lies about 1,251.9 light-years from Earth, has an equilibrium temperature near 1,424 K, spans roughly 17.36 Earth radii and weighs about 151.92 Earth masses.

Its surface is likely an ocean of molten rock.

How to see it

Like any astronomical target, WASP-31 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-31 b is an epic exoplanet

WASP-31 b scores 55 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the epic tier. Another 13 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 6 science badges — Confirmed exoplanet, Gas giant, Hot Jupiter, Lava world, Puffy low-density world 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.