Planetary System
A planet orbiting Gamma Cephei A was tentatively identified by a Canadian team consisting of Bruce Campbell, Gordon Walker and Stephenson Yang in 1988. Its existence was also announced by Anthony Lawton and P Wright in 1989. This would have been the first confirmed extrasolar planet and its ostensible discovery was based on the same radial velocity technique later used successfully by others. However, the claim was retracted in 1992 because the quality of the data was not good enough to establish discovery. But in 2002, evidence of the planet was considerably strengthened by new measurements by Artie Hatzes and his collaborators at the McDonald Observatory.
The secondary star B orbits A at only 9.5 times the semimajor axis of A's planet. This is the smallest ratio of planetary orbits in multiple systems. The orbits are probably coplanar.
| Companion |
Mass | Semimajor axis |
Orbital period |
Eccentricity | Radius |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| b | ≥1.60 ± 0.13 MJ | 2.044 ± 0.057 | 902.9 ± 3.5 | 0.115 ± 0.058 | — |
Read more about this topic: Gamma Cephei
Famous quotes containing the words planetary and/or system:
“What is a television apparatus to man, who has only to shut his eyes to see the most inaccessible regions of the seen and the never seen, who has only to imagine in order to pierce through walls and cause all the planetary Baghdads of his dreams to rise from the dust.”
—Salvador Dali (1904–1989)
“The intellect is vagabond, and our system of education fosters restlessness. Our minds travel when our bodies are forced to stay at home. We imitate; and what is imitation but the travelling of the mind?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)