Gliese 367 b, formally named Tahay, is an exoplanet orbiting the

red dwarf ''Red Dwarf'' is a British science fiction comedy franchise created by Rob Grant and Doug Naylor, which primarily consists of a television sitcom that aired on BBC Two between 1988 and 1999, and on Dave since 2009, gaining a cult following. T ...

star

Gliese 367 Gliese 367 (GJ 367) is a red dwarf star from Earth in the constellation of Vela. It is suspected to be a variable with amplitude 0.012 stellar magnitude and period 5.16 years. A stellar multiplicity survey in 2015 failed to detect any s ...

(GJ 367), 31 light-years (9.5 parsecs) from Earth in the constellation of Vela. The exoplanet takes just 7.7 hours to orbit its star, one of the shortest orbits of any planet. Due to its close orbit, the exoplanet gets bombarded with radiation 500 times more than Earth receives from the Sun. Dayside temperatures on GJ 367b are around 1,500 °C (1,770 K; 2,730 °F). Due to its close orbit, it most likely is tidally locked. The atmosphere of Gliese 367 b, due to the extreme temperatures, would have boiled away along with signs of life. The core of GJ 367b is likely composed of iron and nickel, making its core similar to Mercury's core. The core of GJ 367b is extremely dense, making up about 91% of the planet's mass; the entire planet has a total density of , about twice that of Earth. The planet may have been stripped of the outer silicate layers, like Mercury and other

iron planet ] An iron planet is a type of planet that consists primarily of an iron-rich core with little or no mantle. Mercury is the largest celestial body of this type in the Solar System (as the other terrestrial planets are silicate planets), but larger ...

s, due to collisions or evaporation by the extreme stellar radiation. , Gliese 367 b is the smallest known exoplanet within 10 parsecs of the

Solar System The Solar SystemCapitalization of the name varies. The International Astronomical Union, the authoritative body regarding astronomical nomenclature, specifies capitalizing the names of all individual astronomical objects but uses mixed "Solar S ...

, and the second-least massive after

Proxima Centauri d Proxima Centauri d (also called Proxima d) is a candidate exoplanet orbiting the red dwarf star Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the Sun and part of the Alpha Centauri triple star system. Together with two other planets in the Pro ...

Nomenclature

In August 2022, this planet and its host star were included among 20 systems to be named by the third NameExoWorlds project. The approved names, proposed by a team from

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...

, were announced in June 2023. Gliese 367 b is named Tahay and its host star is named Añañuca, after names for the endemic Chilean wildflowers '' Calydorea xiphioides'' and '' Phycella cyrtanthoides''. ''Calydorea xiphioides'' only blooms for between 7 and 8 hours each year, alluding to the planet's short orbital period of 7.7 hours.

References

Exoplanets in the Gliese Catalog Vela (constellation) Exoplanets discovered in 2021 Transiting exoplanets Exoplanets detected by radial velocity Exoplanets discovered by TESS Exoplanets with proper names Sub-Earth exoplanets {{extrasolar-planet-stub