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.

Read more about this topic:  Upsilon Andromedae B

Famous quotes containing the word discovery:

    “The gain is not the having of children; it is the discovery of love and how to be loving.”
    —Polly Berrien Berends (20th century)

    “I have known no experience more distressing than the discovery that Negroes didn’t love me. Unutterable loneliness claimed me. I felt without roots, like a man without a country ...”
    —Sarah Patton Boyle, U.S. civil rights activist and author. The Desegregated Heart, part 1, ch. 10 (1962)

    “Your discovery of the contradiction caused me the greatest surprise and, I would almost say, consternation, since it has shaken the basis on which I intended to build my arithmetic.... It is all the more serious since, with the loss of my rule V, not only the foundations of my arithmetic, but also the sole possible foundations of arithmetic seem to vanish.”
    —Gottlob Frege (1848–1925)