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EarthNeptuneGJ 2056 b
0.01 AU0.1110100 AU MercuryEarthJupiterNeptune GJ 2056 b · 0.28 AU
Diagram, not a photograph. Sizes to scale; distance from the star on a logarithmic scale, worked out from the orbital period and the star’s mass. The planet’s colour shows its equilibrium temperature (temperate), not its real colour. Source: NASA Exoplanet Archive.

Confirmed exoplanet · Database record + computed analysis

GJ 2056 b

A confirmed world orbiting GJ 2056, 92.8 light-years away.

92.8 light-years (28.4 pc) Discovered 2020 · Radial Velocity

A Neptune-class world

4.17 Earth radii, in the ice-giant size range. At only 16.2 Earth masses for that size, it must be substantially gas or volatile ices: puffy, not rocky.

The orbit

Its year, one full orbit, takes just 70.0 Earth days. The orbit is strongly stretched (eccentricity 0.72), so its distance from the star, and with it the climate, swings dramatically.

Temperature and starlight

Its equilibrium temperature (the airless-world estimate) is about 38 °C. In the range where, with the right atmosphere, liquid water is conceivable; a real atmosphere could shift the true surface figure a lot (Earth's equilibrium value is −18 °C, yet we average +15 °C). It receives 1.55 times Earth's starlight, the same order as our own world.

Its sun

Its star is an orange K-type (4,070 K), M0V:: cooler and longer-lived than the Sun, a class some astronomers consider ideal for habitability.

How far is that, really?

At 93 light-years, tonight's light from this system left it around the year 1933. A Voyager-speed probe would need roughly 1,641,341 years to get there.

How we found it

It was found by the radial-velocity method: the planet's gravity swings its star in a small circle, and that wobble shows up as a rhythmic Doppler shift in the starlight. The wobble's size gives the planet's minimum mass. The discovery was announced in 2020 from Multiple Observatories.

Everything above is computed from the archive’s measured values for this planet. Where a quantity is missing, the statement is omitted rather than guessed.

About this record

The measured values come from the NASA Exoplanet Archive, and any missing value has not been determined yet; the Atlas never fills gaps with guesses. More standout worlds: Proxima b, TRAPPIST-1e, K2-18 b, 55 Cancri e, and the detection methods that found them all.