The exoplanet Tau Boo C reigns over the airless, baked and battered terrain of a hypothetical moon. This satellite has been faulted and fractured by its proximity to the massive tau Boo C and by the gravitational tug-of-war between tau Boo C and its sun.  A remote stellar companion, tau Boo B, can be seen in the upper right; at a distance of 23 billion miles, this M2 dwarf is just another bright star.

Astronomers believe that there is a large planet orbiting very close to tau Boo A, a type F7V star about 50 light years from the Earth. Designated tau Boo C, this planet is believed to have about four times the mass of the planet Jupiter and orbits around its sun at the astonishing pace of once every 3.3 days.