Gliese 86 b, sometimes referred to as Gliese 86 A b (so as to distinguish the planet from companion star "B") and/or shortened to Gl 86 b, is an

extrasolar planet An exoplanet or extrasolar planet is a planet outside the Solar System. The first possible evidence of an exoplanet was noted in 1917 but was not recognized as such. The first confirmation of detection occurred in 1992. A different planet, init ...

approximately 35 light-years away in the constellation of Eridanus. The planet was discovered orbiting a

K-type main-sequence star A K-type main-sequence star, also referred to as a K-type dwarf or an orange dwarf, is a main-sequence (hydrogen-burning) star of spectral type K and luminosity class V. These stars are intermediate in size between red M-type main-sequence star ...

(

Gliese 86 Gliese 86 (13 G. Eridani, HD 13445) is a K-type main-sequence star approximately 35 light-years away in the constellation of Eridanus. It has been confirmed that a white dwarf orbits the primary star. In 1998 the European Southern Obs ...

A) by French scientists in November 1998. The planet orbits very close to the star, completing an orbit in 15.78 days. Preliminary astrometric measurements made with the Hipparcos space probe suggested the planet has an orbital

inclination Orbital inclination measures the tilt of an object's orbit around a celestial body. It is expressed as the angle between a reference plane and the orbital plane or axis of direction of the orbiting object. For a satellite orbiting the Eart ...

of 164.0° and a

mass Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different eleme ...

15 times that of

Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a mass more than two and a half times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined, but slightly less than one-thousandth t ...

, which would make the object a

brown dwarf Brown dwarfs (also called failed stars) are substellar objects that are not massive enough to sustain nuclear fusion of ordinary hydrogen ( 1H) into helium in their cores, unlike a main-sequence star. Instead, they have a mass between the most ...

. However, further analysis suggests the Hipparcos measurements are not precise enough to reliably determine astrometric orbits of substellar companions, thus the orbital inclination and

true mass In astronomy, minimum mass is the lower-bound calculated mass of observed objects such as planets, stars and binary systems, nebulae, and black holes. Minimum mass is a widely cited statistic for extrasolar planets detected by the radial veloci ...

of the candidate planet remain unknown.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Gliese 86 B Gliese 86 Eridanus (constellation) Giant planets Exoplanets discovered in 1998 Exoplanets detected by radial velocity 8