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Common exoplanet 19 EP

GJ 3470 b

RA 119.7735° · Dec 15.3912° · exoplanet

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Score breakdown

· 3 badges
19 pts · Common
Common 22 pts → Uncommon
  • Tidally locked +10
  • Confirmed exoplanet +5
  • Neptune-like +4
Total score 19

3 more points to reach Uncommon.

Badges

  • Confirmed exoplanet · +5
  • Neptune-like · +4
  • Tidally locked · +10

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

  • 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. 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. Inside our stellar backyard: every radio broadcast humanity has ever made has already swept past it.

Find it in the sky

  • How to spot it. At magnitude 12.3 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 January — that's when to go looking.

Could we get there?

  • Verdict. Hopelessly far for any craft humanity can build today.

Properties

density gcc
0.8
diameter km
58295.834
discovery facility
La Silla Observatory
discovery method
Radial Velocity
discovery year
2012
dist ly
95.9597
eccentricity
0.017
eq temp k
593.5
host star teff
3600
inclination
89.13
insolation
29.6584
mag
12.332
mass earth
13.9
name
GJ 3470 b
orbital period days
3.3366
radius earth
4.57
semi major au
0.0355
spect
M1.5
sys num planets
1
sys num stars
1
tidally locked
yes
tidally locked inferred
yes

About GJ 3470 b

GJ 3470 b is a common exoplanet. It lies about 96 light-years from Earth, shines at apparent magnitude 12.33, has spectral type M1.5 and has an equilibrium temperature near 594 K.

It orbits closer to its star than Mercury does to the Sun, completing a lap in less time than Mercury takes.

How to see it

At apparent magnitude 12.33, it takes a larger telescope or a long-exposure image to capture.

Like any astronomical target, GJ 3470 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 GJ 3470 b is a common exoplanet

GJ 3470 b scores 19 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the common tier. Another 3 points would lift it into a rarer tier.

That score comes from 3 science badges — Confirmed exoplanet, Neptune-like and Tidally locked — 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.