A REAL STAR. NOT A METAPHOR.
There is literally
a star called Diya.
Officially WASP-72. Roughly 1,418 light-years away. Sitting in Fornax. Hosting a ridiculously hot planet that finishes a year in about 53 hours.
somewhere in here: DIYA
scroll into space ↓
DIYA • WASP-72 • FORNAX • 434.8 PC • V = 10.87 • F-TYPE STAR • CUPTOR • 2.2 DAY YEAR •
01 / COSMIC ID CARD
If stars had Aadhaar cards.
“Diya” was adopted through the IAU NameExoWorlds campaign. The name refers to the traditional oil lamp — so somebody managed to name a ball of nuclear plasma after a lamp. Excellent work.
02 / THE ACTUAL THING
No AI art. No dramatic NASA wallpaper.
At this distance, Diya is a point of light in survey imagery. Which sounds underwhelming until you remember that the dot is made of photons that actually crossed interstellar space to reach the detector.
THE FUN PART
The light you see left Diya roughly fourteen centuries ago.
So the photons in a modern telescope image began travelling toward us around the 600s CE. Space has absolutely no respect for reasonable loading times.
03 / PLOT TWIST: IT HAS A PLANET
Meet Cuptor.
WASP-72 b, officially Cuptor, is a gas giant orbiting absurdly close to Diya.
2.2 daysone full year
0.03711 AUfrom its star
1.29× Jupiterplanet radius
2.3× Jupiterplanet mass
A birthday every 53 hours.
Cuptor completes an orbit in about 2.2 Earth days. If birthdays worked there, cake logistics would become a full-time job.
Way too close.
0.03711 AU is only about 3.7% of the Earth–Sun distance. This planet is basically speed-running its solar system.
We found it by watching Diya blink.
Its discovery used the transit method: when Cuptor crosses in front of Diya, the star’s brightness dips by a tiny measurable amount.
04 / NUMBERS THAT FEEL FAKE
Space needs to calm down.
0light-years away
Even light needs about fourteen centuries to make the trip.
10.87visual magnitude
Your eyes tap out long before this. Telescope required.
~164Cuptor-years per Earth year
One Earth orbit = an unreasonable number of Cuptor New Year parties.
2012planet discovery announced
Cuptor entered the exoplanet catalogue after transit observations.
05 / THE IMAGE TRAIL
From “somewhere up there” to one exact star.
06 / SOURCE TRAIL
The links that helped trace Diya.
From database entries to survey viewers and the archive support request, these are the places used to check and explore WASP-72 / Diya.
SIMBAD — Diya / WASP-72
Useful for checking the star’s database entry and switching between different sky surveys.
Open SIMBADDESI Legacy Survey Viewer — WASP-72
Lets you explore the exact field around WASP-72 and toggle different survey layers.
Open DESI viewerNASA SkyView — WASP-72
This gives a real Digitized Sky Survey image of the region containing Diya.
Open NASA SkyViewMAST / STScI Archive Help Desk
The archive support system handling questions about telescope observations and stored astronomical data.
Open MAST help deskOur STScI request
The actual ticket created for the request to find observational imagery of WASP-72 / Diya.
Open ticket
END OF DOSSIER
So yes.
So yes.
Diya is a star.
And somewhere around that star, Cuptor has probably completed another year while you were reading this page.