Planetary system · 1 known planet · Auriga

WASP-12

WASP-12 A

Its star: above the horizon after darkHighest after dark 05:17 · southeast · 64°

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Where is WASP-12?

Times for LondonChange city

Look southeast, about 64° up at 05:17 in Auriga. It rises at 21:25 and climbs through the night.

Rises: 21:25
Highest: 06:33
Sets: 15:44
Best after dark: 05:17 · 64°

Can I see WASP-12?

No. The planets of WASP-12 can’t be seen with the eye, binoculars or any amateur telescope: they are lost in their star’s light. What you can do is point toward the star.

From London tonight, the star WASP-12 is above the horizon after dark. It’s highest just before dawn, around 05:17, in the southeast at 64°.

Why is WASP-12 interesting?

WASP-12 has 1 known planet, discovered in 2008 by the primary transit method.

WASP-12 Ab is a giant planet that orbits in under five days: a “hot Jupiter”.

What can you see?

Eyes

Direction only

Not visible.

Binoculars

Not visible.

Telescope

The star is around magnitude 11.7 and visible in a telescope of about 100–150 mm with a chart. The planets themselves can’t be seen with any backyard telescope.

What you’re likely to see, not what a space telescope photographs.

About

WASP-12 is a star about 1,400 light-years away in Auriga, slightly hotter than the Sun. Its planet WASP-12 b is one of the most extreme hot Jupiters known.

It orbits its star in about 26 hours, so close that the star’s gravity stretches it into an egg shape and pulls material off it. Measurements show its orbit is slowly shrinking: the planet is spiraling inward and is expected to be destroyed in a few million years.

It is also one of the darkest planets known, reflecting very little of the light that hits it.

WASP stands for Wide Angle Search for Planets, a ground-based survey that found WASP-12 b in 2008. The planet is a little more massive than Jupiter but almost twice as wide, and its dayside is hotter than 2,000 °C.

Precise timing of its transits shows its orbit is shrinking by a few hundredths of a second each year.

The WASP-12 system

Known planets of WASP-12 (catalog values from exoplanet.eu)
Planet	Mass	Radius	Orbit	From star	Found	Method
WASP-12 Ab	1.47 M♃	1.90 R♃	26.2 h	0.0234 AU	2008	Primary Transit

M⊕ / R⊕ = Earth masses / radii; M♃ / R♃ = Jupiter. Masses from radial velocity are often minimum masses. Data: The Extrasolar Planets Encyclopaedia, exoplanet.eu (CC BY 4.0).

Questions

Is WASP-12 b being destroyed?

Yes, slowly. Its orbit is shrinking, and it is losing material to its star.

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Sources: The Extrasolar Planets Encyclopaedia (CC BY 4.0); star chart: Wikidata (CC0). Positions computed for your place and time with astronomy-engine. Data & Licences