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Entering orbit…
Habitability
29/ 100
Extremely Harsh

Reading GJ 1061 d’s atmosphere

Dominant elements: O, Si, Fe, N, H, CThis is what a telescope would measure while GJ 1061 d crosses in front of its star: starlight passes through the atmosphere and spreads into a rainbow band. Each dark line marks a wavelength the atmosphere absorbed.Every element absorbs its own signature wavelengths — hydrogen always darkens the same two spots, calcium another pair, and so on. Astronomers match the lines in a real spectrum against a library of these signatures to say what an atmosphere is made of, light-years away, without ever visiting. A deeper line generally means more of that element is present.GJ 1061 d sits about 12 light-years away, found by the radial velocity method. Most catalogued distances trace back to parallax: as Earth orbits the Sun, a nearby star appears to shift very slightly against the distant background stars, and the size of that shift gives its distance directly.

GJ 1061 d

Ice WorldExtremely Harsh12 light years awayFound 2020

GJ 1061 d, from the NASA Exoplanet Archive (found 2020). Measured: 1.67 Earth masses, 0.054 AU, a 2953 K M-type star. Composition inferred from a estimated bulk density of 1.07x Earth's, modeled rather than measured since this isn't a transiting planet, which is rock and iron, with a day locked to its 13.1-day year, as anything orbiting this close would be.

Host star

GJ 1061

Type
M-type (Red Dwarf)
Spectral type
M5.5 V
Temperature
2,953 K
Radius
0.156 ☉
Mass
0.12 ☉
Known planets
3, including this one
Luminosity
1.70e-3 ☉

Published by the NASA Exoplanet Archive. This world’s temperature and habitability score are computed from this star’s measured luminosity, not from a stand-in for its class.

Ice World

No life — too cold for liquid waterLow Activity
Why is this a Ice World?Your planet orbits at 0.05 AU from its star, resulting in frigid temperatures of 247K.
Ice worlds form beyond the frost line where temperatures are low enough for water and other volatiles to freeze solid. They may have subsurface oceans beneath thick ice shells.
Classification Criteria:
✓ Distance: 0.05 AU (>3 AU) or Temperature <200K✓ Temperature: 247K✓ Water content: 34.9% for ice formation
Further reading
Imagined LifeJames Trefil & Michael SummersWhat could live on a world like this one: ice shells, supergravity, tidally locked twilight.Envisioning ExoplanetsMichael CarrollWhat these worlds might look like from the ground, painted from the same measurements this page renders.The Little Book of ExoplanetsJoshua WinnHow these worlds are found, and what a measurement can honestly tell us.Exoplanets: Diamond Worlds, Super Earths, Pulsar PlanetsMichael Summers & James TrefilThe strange end of the catalogue — carbon worlds, molten rock, planets orbiting dead stars.
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Habitability ScoreExtremely Harsh
29
Contributing Factors
temperature40
Extreme temperature - very difficult for life
atmosphere42
Nitrogen atmosphere provides protection but not breathable (partially stripped by slow rotation)
water39
Limited water content - mostly frozen
magnetic Field30
No magnetic field - vulnerable to solar radiation
geology60
Some geological activity provides slow nutrient cycling
Organic Chemistry80
Core organic elements (CHNO) present
rotation30
Very slow rotation - severe temperature swings between eternal day and night sides

Physical Properties

Mass
1.67x Earth (9.97e+24 kg)
Radius
1.19x Earth (7,559 km)
This planet: 1.19× Earth radiusEarth: 1× (baseline)
Surface Gravity
1.19x Earth (11.6 m/s²)
Surface Temperature
247 K (-26 °C / -15 °F)
Rotation Period
314.4 hours/day (slower than Earth)
This planet: 314 h/dayEarth: 24 h/day

Orbital Environment

Star Type
M-type (Red Dwarf)
Distance from Star
0.05 AU (8.08 million km)
Orbital Period
8 days

Atmosphere

Thin nitrogen and methane atmosphere

Elemental Composition

O - Oxygen
31.2%
Si - Silicon
24.6%
Fe - Iron
12.3%

Surface Characteristics

Frozen surface covered in water ice, possible subsurface ocean if tidal heating present
A binary star system's orrery: two suns close together, a red dashed dead-zone boundary, and a debris trail left by a destroyed world

New: Binary Star Systems 🌀

A system can now orbit two suns. Add a companion star when you build one — close, medium, or wide — and the physics decides what survives: a shared center of mass carves out a dead zone where gravity from both stars tears a world apart, leaving it as debris, and every surviving planet's orbit goes elliptical, moving fastest at closest approach and slowest out at aphelion. Push the separation to wide and the dead zone opens tens of AU across, wide enough to gut a system that would have been stable around one star alone. Stand on a world that made it through and you'll watch two suns cross the sky together.

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