Upsilon Andromedae B - Discovery

Discovery

Like the majority of known extrasolar planets, Upsilon Andromedae b was detected by the variations in its star's radial velocity caused by the planet's gravity. The variations were detected by making sensitive measurements of the Doppler shift of Upsilon Andromedae's spectrum. The planet was announced in January 1997, together with 55 Cancri b and the planet orbiting Tau Boötis.

Like 51 Pegasi b, the first extrasolar planet discovered around a normal star, Upsilon Andromedae b orbits very close to its star, closer than Mercury does to our Sun. The planet takes 4.617 days to complete an orbit, with a semimajor axis of 0.0595 AU.

A limitation of the radial velocity method used to detect Upsilon Andromedae b is that only a lower limit on the mass can be found. In the case of Upsilon Andromedae b, this lower limit is 68.7% of the mass of Jupiter, though depending on the inclination of the orbit, the true mass may be much greater. However, astronomers found recently that inclination of the orbital plane is around 25° and the true mass may be about 1.4 MJ. Coplanarity is not to be assumed; the mutual inclination between c and d is 35 degrees.

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