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Entering orbit…
Habitability
36/ 100
Extremely Harsh
GJ 1061 d rendered in TerraForge from its measured mass, orbit and star

GJ 1061 d

Also written GJ 1061d

Ice World12 light years awayFound 2020
Mass
1.67 × Earth
Radius
1.16 × Earth
Gravity
1.24 g
Surface (est.)
246 K
Year
13.1 days
From Earth
12 ly
Mass
1.67 × Earth
Radius
1.16 × Earth
Gravity
1.24 g
Surface (est.)
246 K
Year
13.1 days
From Earth
12 ly

GJ 1061 system

Type
M-type (Red Dwarf)
Spectral type
M5.5 V
Temperature
2,953 K
Radius
0.156 ☉
Mass
0.12 ☉
Planets
3
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.

GJ 1061 b0.021 AU1.1 M⊕
GJ 1061 c0.034 AU1.8 M⊕
GJ 1061 d0.054 AUYou are here1.7 M⊕
Habitable zone

Star and planets drawn to scale: the star is 15 times as wide as GJ 1061 d, so only its edge is in view. Orbits spaced as in the star system view.

Estimated: this planet doesn't transit its star, so its size is inferred, not measured

GJ 1061 d is the outermost of three planets around GJ 1061, a small red dwarf about 12 light-years away and one of the 20 nearest stars to the Sun, and it is the one in the star's habitable zone. The habitable zone is the range of distances where a planet could keep liquid water on its surface. GJ 1061 d orbits every 13.07 days, and the discovery team found that it receives a similar amount of energy from its star as Earth receives from the Sun.

Surface. Frozen surface covered in water ice, possible subsurface ocean if tidal heating present

Ice World
Life unlikely — too cold for liquid waterModerate Activity
GJ 1061 d orbits at 0.05 AU from its star, resulting in frigid temperatures of 246K.
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: 246K✓ Water content: 34.4% for ice formation

Reading GJ 1061 d’s atmosphere

Dominant elements: O, Si, Fe, N, C, HThis 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.
Further reading
ExoplanetsSara Seager (editor)The field's standard reference: how planets are found, how they form, and what their atmospheres are made of.The Planet FactoryElizabeth TaskerHow planets are made, and why so few of them come out like Earth.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.
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Habitability ScoreExtremely Harsh
36
Contributing Factors
temperature47
Cold - water freezes much of the year; challenging but potentially habitable
atmosphere42

Thin nitrogen and methane atmosphere

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
geology90
Active geology recycles nutrients and drives carbon cycle
Organic Chemistry80
Core organic elements (CHNO) present
rotation30
Very slow rotation - days and nights each last several Earth days, bringing severe temperature swings

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
246 K (-27 °C / -16 °F)
Rotation Period
314.4 hours/day (slower than Earth)
This planet: 314 h/dayEarth: 24 h/day

Elemental Composition

How TerraForge built this world

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 an estimated bulk density of 1.07x Earth's, modeled rather than measured since this isn't a transiting planet — the radius is the archive's estimate, so it can't settle how much water there is; read as rock and iron, with a day locked to its 13.1-day year, as anything orbiting this close would be.

A dark ringed planet hanging over the horizon of a rocky moon, its rings lit by a distant sun

New: Stand on Your Moons 🌒

A planet's surface view isn't the only ground any more. Press the surface button on a planet with moons and it asks where to stand: the planet itself, or any moon still in orbit, each tagged with what it became — ocean, ice, carbon, volcanic. Every moon gets its own ground and sky from its own physics: airless rock under a black sky, ice cracked by geysers over a hidden sea, sulfur plains shaking with eruptions, or orange haze you can't see the sun through. And hanging over the horizon, there's the planet you built.

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