Epsilon Reticuli b, sometimes designated Epsilon Reticuli Ab to distinguish from the

white dwarf A white dwarf is a Compact star, stellar core remnant composed mostly of electron-degenerate matter. A white dwarf is very density, dense: in an Earth sized volume, it packs a mass that is comparable to the Sun. No nuclear fusion takes place i ...

companion of the primary star Epsilon Reticuli, also known as HD 27442, was discovered on December 16, 2000 by the

Anglo-Australian Planet Search The Anglo Australian Planet Search or (AAPS) is a long-term astronomical survey started in 1998 and continuing to the present. It is being carried out on the 3.9-metre Anglo-Australian Telescope (AAT) of the Anglo-Australian Observatory in Austral ...

Team using the

radial velocity The radial velocity or line-of-sight velocity of a target with respect to an observer is the rate of change of the vector displacement between the two points. It is formulated as the vector projection of the target-observer relative velocity ...

method. The planet's mass is at least 56% greater than

Jupiter mass The Jupiter mass, also called Jovian mass, is the unit of mass equal to the total mass of the planet Jupiter. This value may refer to the mass of the planet alone, or the mass of the entire Jovian system to include the moons of Jupiter. Jupiter ...

, a more accurate estimate requiring its

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 ...

to be known. The planet orbits its parent star relatively close, and with more than twice the eccentricity of Earth's orbit. Based on its mass, it is almost certainly a

gas giant A gas giant is a giant planet composed mainly of hydrogen and helium. Jupiter and Saturn are the gas giants of the Solar System. The term "gas giant" was originally synonymous with "giant planet". However, in the 1990s, it became known that Uranu ...

References

External links

*
The Extrasolar Planets Encyclopaediaentry
{{DEFAULTSORT:Epsilon Reticuli B Reticulum Exoplanets discovered in 2000 Giant planets Exoplanets detected by radial velocity