WASP-53 c

Astrophysical Synthesis & Habitability Characterization

WASP-53 c is a confirmed gas giant exoplanet orbiting the star WASP-53, located approximately 656.7 light-years (201.34 parsecs) from the Solar System. First announced in 2017 by Multiple Facilities using the Radial Velocity detection technique (measuring periodic Doppler reflex motion in the host star's spectrum), this world has a minimum or true mass of 5196.521 Earth masses (16.35 M♃), while its physical transit radius has not yet been geometrically observed.

In its orbital architecture around WASP-53, WASP-53 c completes one full revolution every 2840 Earth days (7.78Julian years) at a semi-major axis of 3.73 AU (corresponding to the middle-system regime between Mars at 1.52 AU and Jupiter at 5.20 AU). Its mean orbital velocity is approximately 14.3 km/s (compared to Earth's 29.8 km/s). The planet follows a highly eccentric trajectory (e = 0.8369, swinging from 0.6084 AU at periapsis out to 6.8516 AU at apoapsis), pointing to past dynamical scattering or secular gravitational perturbations.

❄️ Thermal Regime (Cryogenic Zone): With an equilibrium temperature of 110 K (-163°C / -261°F) and an incident flux of 0.02 S⊕ (~34 W/m²), surface water and volatile species on WASP-53 c would remain locked in cryogenic ice phases unless warmed by subsurface tidal or radiogenic heating.

The host star WASP-53 is classified as a stellar host with an effective photospheric temperature of 4,953 K, a radius of 0.798 R☉, a mass of 0.839 M☉, an estimated bolometric luminosity of 0.344 L☉. Stellar evolution modeling indicates a metallicity of [Fe/H] = 0.22 dex (metal-rich relative to the Sun). From Earth, WASP-53 shines at apparent V-band magnitude 12.591 (faint and requiring research-grade or CCD telescopic photometry) in the Southern celestial hemisphere. The WASP-53 system is a multi-planet architecture hosting 2 confirmed worlds, with WASP-53 c sharing its stellar neighborhood alongside WASP-53 b.

Discovery Facility: Multiple Facilities · Catalogue Source: NASA Exoplanet Archive (IPAC / Caltech).