Epsilon Eridani b, often catalogued as HD 22049 b, is an extrasolar planet approximately 10 light-years away in the constellation of Eridanus (the River). Orbiting the star Epsilon Eridani, this makes the Epsilon Eridani system the closest to the Sol System with a confirmed exoplanet.
The planet's existence was suspected by a Canadian team led by Bruce Campbell and Gordon Walker in the early 1990s, but their observations weren't definitive enough...
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Epsilon Eridani b, often catalogued as HD 22049 b, is an extrasolar planet approximately 10 light-years away in the constellation of Eridanus (the River). Orbiting the star Epsilon Eridani, this makes the Epsilon Eridani system the closest to the Sol System with a confirmed exoplanet.
The planet's existence was suspected by a Canadian team led by Bruce Campbell and Gordon Walker in the early 1990s, but their observations weren't definitive enough to make a solid discovery. Its formal discovery was announced on August 7, 2000 by a team led by Artie Hatzes, the discoverers gave its mass as 1.2 ± 0.33 times that of Jupiter, with a mean distance of 3.3 AU from the star. The object's orbit was initially thought to be highly eccentric (with Benedict's more recent estimate of eccentricity to be about 0.702). Observers, including Geoffrey Marcy initially required more information on the star's Doppler noise behaviour created by its large and varying magnetic field, and the discovery remained...
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