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Entering orbit…
Habitability
7/ 100
Uninhabitable
LHS 3844 b rendered in TerraForge from its measured mass, orbit and star

LHS 3844 b

Also written LHS 3844b

Rocky Terrestrial49 light years awayFound 2019
Mass
2.37 × Earth
Radius
1.29 × Earth
Gravity
1.42 g
Surface (est.)
648 K
Year
11.1 hrs
From Earth
48.6 ly
Mass
2.37 × Earth
Radius
1.29 × Earth
Gravity
1.42 g
Surface (est.)
648 K
Year
11.1 hrs
From Earth
48.6 ly

LHS 3844 system

Type
M-type (Red Dwarf)
Spectral type
M4.5-M5.0
Temperature
3,080 K
Radius
0.189 ☉
Mass
0.151 ☉
Planets
1
Luminosity
2.72e-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.

LHS 3844 b0.010 AUYou are here2.4 M⊕
Habitable zone

Star and planets drawn to scale: the star is 16 times as wide as LHS 3844 b, so only its edge is in view. Orbits spaced as in the star system view.

LHS 3844 b is one of the few rocky planets beyond the solar system whose surface astronomers have begun to read directly. NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) found it, and the discovery was published in 2019 in a paper led by Roland Vanderspek. The planet is slightly larger than Earth and whips around a small, cool red dwarf star about 49 light-years away in roughly 11 hours.

Surface. Rocky surface with impact craters, possible volcanic features

Rocky Terrestrial
Life unlikely — too hot for liquid waterMagnetic FieldHigh Activity
LHS 3844 b is dominated by silicate (24.1%) and iron (12.1%) content, forming a rocky terrestrial body.
Rocky terrestrial planets are primarily composed of silicate rocks and metals. They're the most common type of small planet in the universe.
Classification Criteria:
✓ Silicon: 24.1% + Iron: 12.1% + Magnesium: 3.6%✓ Mass: 2.4x Earth (terrestrial range)

Reading LHS 3844 b’s atmosphere

Dominant elements: O, Si, Fe, N, H, CThis is what a telescope would measure while LHS 3844 b 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.LHS 3844 b sits about 49 light-years away, found by the transit 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.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 ScoreUninhabitable
7
Contributing Factors
temperature4
Scorching - hot enough to melt lead, though rock stays solid; no chance for life
atmosphere70

Thin CO₂ and nitrogen atmosphere

Nitrogen atmosphere provides protection but not breathable
water8
Limited water content - boiling away, little would be retained
magnetic Field100
Magnetic field provides radiation protection
geology90
Active geology recycles nutrients and drives carbon cycle
Organic Chemistry80
Core organic elements (CHNO) present
rotation60
Fast rotation - strong global wind patterns and weather systems, but manageable

Physical Properties

Mass
2.37x Earth (1.42e+25 kg)
Radius
1.33x Earth (8,494 km)
This planet: 1.33× Earth radiusEarth: 1× (baseline)
Surface Gravity
1.33x Earth (13.1 m/s²)
Surface Temperature
648 K (375 °C / 707 °F)
Rotation Period
11.1 hours/day (faster than Earth)
This planet: 11 h/dayEarth: 24 h/day

Time Dilation

Clocks run 14.0 seconds per year slower than deep space — about 19 minutes over a lifetime

Elemental Composition

How TerraForge built this world

LHS 3844 b, from the NASA Exoplanet Archive (found 2019). Measured: 2.37 Earth masses, 0.00624 AU, a 3080 K M-type star. Composition inferred from a measured bulk density of 1.10x Earth's, which is rock and iron, with a day locked to its 0.5-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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