Your Eyes In Space Open the simulation

Exoplanet · gas giant

HAT-P-31 b

HAT-P-31 b is a gas giant orbiting the star HAT-P-31. Its year lasts 5.01 Earth days. It was discovered in 2011 by the Transit method.

Host starHAT-P-31
Distance1,122 light-years (344.1 pc)
Orbital period5.01 days
Orbital radius0.061 AU
Eccentricity0.250
Radius12.2 R⊕ · 1.09 R♃
Mass721 M⊕ · 2.27 M♃
Density2.18 g/cm³
Surface gravity4.83 × Earth
Equilibrium temperature1,450 K (1,177 °C)
Stellar flux received747 × Earth
Discovery methodTransit
Discovery year2011
Discovered byHATNet

Habitable zone

Inside the inner edge of the habitable zone: it receives 747 times the light the Earth does, too hot to keep liquid water on its surface.

Its star in the sky

In the planet's sky its star is a disc 12° across: 23 times the Sun as we see it from Earth.

In the sky

A telescope is needed to see it: its apparent magnitude is 11.71. Visible from the whole Northern Hemisphere and south to latitude 64° S. North of latitude 64° N it never sets. It stands highest at midnight in June, the best time to observe it.

Light's journey

The light you see tonight set out around the year 904. At the speed of Voyager 1, the fastest craft leaving the Solar System (16.9 km per second), the trip would take 20 million years.

Open in the simulation

Data: NASA Exoplanet Archive, PSCompPars. Its look in the simulation is a rendering based on the measured radius, mass and temperature.