Confirmed exoplanet · Database record + computed analysis
GQ Lup b
A confirmed world orbiting GQ Lup, 493.0 light-years away.
A gas giant
33.60 Earth radii, Jupiter-class (Jupiter is 11.2). At only 6356.0 Earth masses for that size, it must be substantially gas or volatile ices: puffy, not rocky.
Temperature and starlight
Its equilibrium temperature (the airless-world estimate) is about 2,377 °C. Hot enough to melt copper; any surface would glow. It receives only 0.00 times Earth's starlight.
Its sun
Its star is an orange K-type (4,360 K), K7e V: cooler and longer-lived than the Sun, a class some astronomers consider ideal for habitability.
How far is that, really?
At 493 light-years, tonight's light from this system left it around the year 1532. A Voyager-speed probe would need roughly 8,723,285 years to get there.
How we found it
It was directly imaged, one of the rare planets actually photographed as its own point of light, possible only for young, hot, wide-orbiting giants. The discovery was announced in 2004 from Paranal Observatory.
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.