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Uncommon exoplanet 27 EP

Kepler-987 b

RA 289.4111° · Dec 46.1308° · exoplanet

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Score breakdown

· 5 badges
27 pts · Uncommon
Uncommon 34 pts → Rare
  • Orbits a Sun-like star +8
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) +6
  • Confirmed exoplanet +5
  • Sub-Neptune +5
  • Found by Kepler +3
Total score 27

7 more points to reach Rare.

Badges

  • Confirmed exoplanet · +5
  • Distant (over 1,000 light-years) · +6
  • Sub-Neptune · +5
  • Found by Kepler · +3
  • Orbits a Sun-like star · +8

Trivia

What it actually is

  • What it is made of. Too light to be solid rock and too heavy to be all gas: most likely a deep global ocean or a thick steamy envelope over a rocky core.

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 15.2 it is far too faint for the eye: this one belongs to cameras and long exposures.
  • Northern sky. It rides the northern half of the sky — an easier target the further north you are.
  • Best time of year. It stands highest in the middle of the night around July — that's when to go looking.

Could we get there?

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

Getting there

  • Aboard Voyager 1. ≈ 52.4 million years at Voyager 1's speed (17 km/s).
  • Fastest probe ever. ≈ 4.7 million years even at the Parker Solar Probe's 192 km/s.

Properties

density gcc
1.7
diameter km
41585.212
discovery facility
Kepler
discovery method
Transit
discovery year
2016
dist ly
2981.4768
eccentricity
0
eq temp k
351
host star teff
5637
inclination
89.99
insolation
3.853
mag
15.171
mass earth
10.7
name
Kepler-987 b
orbital period days
105.3033
radius earth
3.26
semi major au
0.4238
sys num planets
1
sys num stars
1

About Kepler-987 b

Kepler-987 b is an uncommon exoplanet. It lies about 2,981.5 light-years from Earth, shines at apparent magnitude 15.17, has an equilibrium temperature near 351 K and spans roughly 3.26 Earth radii.

Too light to be solid rock and too heavy to be all gas: most likely a deep global ocean or a thick steamy envelope over a rocky core.

How to see it

At apparent magnitude 15.17, it takes a larger telescope or a long-exposure image to capture.

Like any astronomical target, Kepler-987 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 Kepler-987 b is an uncommon exoplanet

Kepler-987 b scores 27 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the uncommon tier. Another 7 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 5 science badges — Confirmed exoplanet, Distant (over 1,000 light-years), Sub-Neptune, Found by Kepler and Orbits a Sun-like star — 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.