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Rare exoplanet 38 EP

HD 96167 b

RA 166.3126° · Dec -10.2913° · exoplanet

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Score breakdown

· 5 badges
38 pts · Rare
Rare 50 pts → Epic
  • Two suns in its sky +12
  • Eccentric orbit +9
  • Orbits a Sun-like star +8
  • Confirmed exoplanet +5
  • Gas giant +4
Total score 38

12 more points to reach Epic.

Badges

  • Confirmed exoplanet · +5
  • Gas giant · +4
  • Eccentric orbit · +9
  • Orbits a Sun-like star · +8
  • Two suns in its sky · +12

Trivia

Hard to believe

  • It would float. It is less dense than water. Drop it in a big enough ocean and the whole world would bob on the surface.

What it actually is

  • 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 8.1 it is just past naked-eye reach — ordinary binoculars will pull it in.
  • 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.

Getting there

  • Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 4.9 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).

Properties

density gcc
0.456
diameter km
178586.8
discovery facility
W. M. Keck Observatory
discovery method
Radial Velocity
discovery year
2009
dist ly
278.213
eccentricity
0.685
eq temp k
333.63
host star teff
5733
insolation
2.0941
mag
8.09
mass earth
227.8841
multi star system
yes
name
HD 96167 b
orbital period days
498.04
radius earth
14
semi major au
1.332
spect
G5
sys num planets
1
sys num stars
2

About HD 96167 b

HD 96167 b is a rare exoplanet. It lies about 278.2 light-years from Earth, shines at apparent magnitude 8.09, has spectral type G5 and has an equilibrium temperature near 334 K.

Lighter than Neptune — a puffed-up ball of hydrogen and helium with no surface anywhere on it to stand on.

How to see it

At apparent magnitude 8.09, it is an easy target for binoculars.

Like any astronomical target, HD 96167 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 HD 96167 b is a rare exoplanet

HD 96167 b scores 38 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the rare tier. Another 12 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 5 science badges — Confirmed exoplanet, Gas giant, Eccentric orbit, Orbits a Sun-like star 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.