Gliese 581 b

Gliese 581 b or Gl 581 b is an extrasolar planet orbiting the star Gliese 581. The planet was discovered by a team of French and Swiss astronomers, who announced their findings on November 30, 2005 as a discovery of one of the smallest extrasolar planets ever found, with one conclusion being that planets may be more common around the smallest stars. It was the fifth planet found around a red dwarf star (after Gliese 876's planets and Gliese 436 b... more

Gliese 581 b or Gl 581 b is an extrasolar planet orbiting the star Gliese 581. The planet was discovered by a team of French and Swiss astronomers, who announced their findings on November 30, 2005 as a discovery of one of the smallest extrasolar planets ever found, with one conclusion being that planets may be more common around the smallest stars. It was the fifth planet found around a red dwarf star (after Gliese 876's planets and Gliese 436 b). The planet was discovered using the HARPS instrument, with which they found the host star to have a wobble that implied the existence of the planet. The astronomers published their results in a Letter to the Editor of Astronomy and Astrophysics. Gliese 581 b is at minimum about 16 times the Earth's mass, similar to Neptune's mass. It does not transit its star, implying that its inclination is less than 88.1 degrees. Dynamical simulations of the Gliese 581 system assuming that the orbits of the four planets are coplanar show that the system... less