GQ Lup is 493 light-years from the Sun. The NASA Exoplanet Archive lists 1 planet around this K7e V star; the first was found in 2004 by imaging (Paranal Observatory).
Fly there in 3DGQ Lup b was photographed directly: it is one of the few exoplanets seen as its own point of light rather than inferred from its star.
Where the archive gives only a period or only an orbit size, the other is worked out from Kepler’s third law with the star’s mass.
| Spectral type | K7e V |
| Surface temperature | 4,360 K |
| Mass | 0.7 solar masses |
| Radius | 1.94153 solar radii |
| Luminosity | 0.8465 times the Sun |
| Apparent magnitude | 11.593 |
| Age | about 0.001 billion years |
| Distance from the Sun | 493.1 light-years (151.2 parsecs) |
| Position (J2000) | RA 237.3004°, Dec -35.6515° |
| Constellation | Lupus |
| Planet | Year | Orbit | Radius | Mass | Found |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GQ Lup b | 1195.3 years from Kepler’s law | 100.000 AU | 33.6 R⊕ | 6356 M⊕ | Imaging, 2004 |
Values are the NASA Exoplanet Archive’s composite parameters. A radius marked estimated comes from a mass–radius relation; a mass marked minimum is M sin i. Planet sizes and colours in the 3D view are renderings: none of these worlds has been photographed as more than a point of light.
For a star of 4,360 K, 0.85 times as bright as the Sun, the habitable zone, where starlight could keep water liquid on a rocky surface, runs from about 0.94 to 1.74 AU. None of its known planets orbits inside it. The zone says how much starlight arrives, not whether a planet has water or air. The edges follow Kopparapu et al. (2014), as the 3D view draws them.
The light you see left 493 years ago, around 1530.