Lil Uzi Vert is buying a planet — here’s how long it takes to get there

Friends! Have you heard the news? Musician Lil Uzi Vert is trying to buy a planet? Named WASP-127 b, this is a gas giant exoplanet that’s 1.4 times larger than renowned Big Boy, Jupiter.

The world was first alerted to this news by another musician, Grimes:

Apparently @LILUZIVERT owns this planet – just a heads up https://t.co/rcyQ2ts7Hj

— Grimes (@Grimezsz) July 22, 2021

Now, I’m not going into depth about the veracity of this statement.

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Grimes is well-known for making some outlandish claims. Remember when she said she had experimental eye surgery that removed “the top film of [her] eyeball and [replaced] it with an orange ultra-flex polymer?” That her and her friend made? To eliminate blue light from her vision? To “cure seasonal depression?”

Yeah, exactly.

Nor am I going to go into the logistics of how a human actually owns a damn planet. Instead, I’m going to accept all this on face value. Then, I’m going to use cold, hard facts to get the answers we deserve. Specifically…

How long would it take Lil Uzi Vert to travel to his planet, WASP-127 b?

According to those NASA nerds, WASP-127 b is 520 light-years from Earth.When converted using this helpful tool, it shows Lil Uzi Vert’s planet being 3.0568852 x 10¹⁵ miles away from Earth.

The next question is how long would that take to get to?

If we’re incredibly optimistic (and imagine technology is going to rapidly advance), the current theoretical speed limit of a space craft is about 10% of the speed of light, or 62,000,000mph.

Dividing Earth’s distance from WASP-127 b by this means it’d take the futuristic craft 49,304,600 hours to get to Lil Uzi Vert’s planet.

This would work out to be 293,480 weeks. Or 5,625 years.

lil uzi vert is buying planet — Credit: Icebox

Let’s imagine for a moment that Lil Uzi can survive that long ( I put great faith in the longevity-gifting powers of skull diamonds). How will he fund this five-and-a-half thousand year journey?

One potential route is by streaming his own music along the journey.

Currently, Lil Uzi Vert has released two proper studio albums: Luv Is Rage 2 and Eternal Atake. Combined, the standard editions of both run to 118 minutes and 26 seconds across 34 tracks.

On average then, each track is 209 seconds long. This would give him the opportunity to listen to 849,265,837 of his songs during his 5,625 year journey.

According to this site, the average Spotify pay out per stream is $0.004. This means Lil Uzi Vert would earn roughly $3,397,063 during his trip to his beloved WASP-127 b.

So, what have we learned? Mainly that streaming services are totally fucking over artists. And side from that? WASP-127 b is a long-ass way away.

You are most welcome for this analysis.

Story by Callum Booth

Callum Booth is a freelance journalist with over a decade of experience. Previously, he was the Managing Editor of TNW, where his reporting (show all) Callum Booth is a freelance journalist with over a decade of experience. Previously, he was the Managing Editor of TNW, where his reporting was cited widely, including in VICE, the FT, and the BBC. Callum’s writing has appeared in The Verge, The Daily Telegraph, Time Out, and many more. He covers the full spectrum of technology, with a particular focus on how it shapes our daily lives. And a lot of regulation stuff too. Outside of work, Callum’s an avid bookworm, a Fisherman’s Friends addict, and resolutely unshaven. Follow him on Twitter @CallumBooth or visit www.callumbooth.net.