What it’s like to stand here

HU Aqr AB b

weight: ≥ 11.45 g
sky: warm white

Illustration computed from this world’s measured and derived values, not a photograph.

HU Aqr AB b

HU Aqr AB b is a confirmed gas-giant exoplanet 627 ly from Earth in the constellation Aquarius, discovered in 2011 by Yunnan Astronomical Observatory.

627 lyDiscovered in 2011 by Yunnan Astronomical ObservatoryDisputed detection

Eclipse Timing Variations: inferred from shifts in the timing of its eclipsing stars.

HU Aqr →

host star

12.80 R⊕

radius

1,875 M⊕

mass · minimum (m·sin i)

6.5 years

orbital period

–

avg temp

Human scale

HU Aqr AB b is a giant ball of gas with no solid surface to stand on; you would simply sink into ever-thicker cloud. Bathing the cloud tops in warm white light. A year here lasts 6.5 Earth years.

≥ 11.45 g

surface gravity (no solid surface · minimum mass only)

6.5 years

one year, in Earth time

–

sun size, needs orbit

warm white

midday sky tint

0.1×

how high you could jump vs Earth

normal

day/night cycle (not tidally locked)

Calculate your exact weight on HU Aqr AB b →

What these mean: surface gravity · tidal locking · equilibrium temperature

If your children grew up herea playful thought experiment

There is no ground here to grow up on, only bottomless sky. A child could never stand, walk, or even fall to a surface, because there isn't one. Under about 11.4 times Earth's gravity and pressure that only climbs the deeper you go, anything built for this world would not look human at all: picture something closer to a deep-sea creature than a person, broad and buoyant, drifting through the cloud decks with no need for legs and no floor to land on.

Body plan: Floating, not upright; With no surface and no fixed up or down, a skeleton built for standing would be useless; a drifting, gas-filled body would not.
Build: Broad and pressure-hardened; Pressure rises without limit toward the interior, so anything alive would have to be built like a deep-sea animal, not a land one.

A playful thought experiment from this world’s gravity, not a prediction about any real person. No human has ever grown up off Earth, so no one truly knows; the direction (taller in low gravity, shorter and stockier in high) follows how growing bodies respond to weight.

Hear how a voice sounds herea computed acoustic demo

Your voice would sound a thin, helium-fast squeak.

There is no surface to stand on, and we have no temperature for this world, so its cloud-top acoustics cannot be modelled. In hydrogen-helium air sound races, so a voice would leap to a thin, almost cartoonish squeak.

The journey

Cosmic travel advisory

★☆☆☆☆

Do not travel