Extrasolar Planets
Encyclopaediadata
/td> Gliese 1214 is a dim M4.5 red dwarf in the constellation

Ophiuchus Ophiuchus () is a large constellation straddling the celestial equator. Its name comes from the Ancient Greek (), meaning "serpent-bearer", and it is commonly represented as a man grasping a snake. The serpent is represented by the constella ...

with an

apparent magnitude Apparent magnitude () is a measure of the brightness of a star or other astronomical object observed from Earth. An object's apparent magnitude depends on its intrinsic luminosity, its distance from Earth, and any extinction of the object's ...

of 14.7. It is located at a distance of approximately 47 light years from

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surfa ...

. The star is about one-fifth the radius of the

Sun The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is a nearly perfect ball of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core. The Sun radiates this energy mainly as light, ultraviolet, and infrared radi ...

with a surface temperature estimated to be . Its luminosity is only 0.35% that of the Sun. The estimate for the stellar radius is 15% larger than predicted by theoretical models. It also shows a 1% intrinsic variability in the near-infrared probably caused by stellar spots. The star is rotating slowly, with a period that is most likely an integer multiple of 53 days. It is probably at least three billion years old and a member of the old thin disk of the Milky Way. Although GJ 1214 has a low to moderate level of

magnetic activity A stellar magnetic field is a magnetic field generated by the motion of conductive plasma inside a star. This motion is created through convection, which is a form of energy transport involving the physical movement of material. A localized mag ...

, it does undergo flares and is a source of X-ray emission with a base luminosity of . The temperature of the stellar corona is estimated to be about .

Planetary system

In mid-December 2009, a team of Harvard-Smithsonian astronomers announced the discovery of a companion

extrasolar planet An exoplanet or extrasolar planet is a planet outside the Solar System. The first possible evidence of an exoplanet was noted in 1917 but was not recognized as such. The first confirmation of detection occurred in 1992. A different planet, init ...

Gliese 1214 b Gliese 1214 b (often shortened to GJ 1214 b) is an exoplanet that orbits the star Gliese 1214, and was discovered in December 2009. Its parent star is 48 light-years from the Sun, in the constellation Ophiuchus. As of 2017, GJ 1214 b is the most ...

, potentially composed largely of water and having the mass and diameter of a

super-Earth A super-Earth is an extrasolar planet with a mass higher than Earth's, but substantially below those of the Solar System's ice giants, Uranus and Neptune, which are 14.5 and 17 times Earth's, respectively. The term "super-Earth" refers only to ...

. Discovered by the

MEarth project The MEarth Project is a United States NSF-funded, robotic observatory that is part of Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory on Mt. Hopkins, Arizona, US. The project monitors the brightness of thousands of red dwarf stars with the goal of finding tra ...

and investigated further by the

HARPS The High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher (HARPS) is a high-precision echelle planet-finding spectrograph installed in 2002 on the ESO's 3.6m telescope at La Silla Observatory in Chile. The first light was achieved in February 2003. ...

spectrograph on

ESO The European Organisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere, commonly referred to as the European Southern Observatory (ESO), is an intergovernmental research organisation made up of 16 member states for ground-based ast ...

’s 3.6-metre telescope at

La Silla La Silla may refer to: * La Silla Observatory, an astronomical observatory in Chile * Cerro de la Silla, a mountain and natural monument located within the metropolitan area of the city of Monterrey, Nuevo León, in northeastern Mexico. * La Sill ...

, GJ 1214 b is the second super-Earth exoplanet for which astronomers have determined the mass and radius, giving vital clues about its structure. It is also the first super-Earth around which an atmosphere has been found. A search for additional planets using transit timing variations was negative. No transit-time variations have yet been found for this transit. As of 2012, "the given data does not allow us to conclude that there is a econdplanet in the mass range 0.1–5 Earth-masses and the period range 0.76–1.23 or 1.91–3.18 days." The X-ray flux from the host star is estimated to have stripped from the planet over the lifetime of the system. In August 2022, this planetary system was included among 20 systems to be named by the third

NameExoWorlds NameExoWorlds (also known as IAU NameExoWorlds) is the name of various projects managed by the International Astronomical Union (I.A.U.) to encourage names to be submitted for astronomical objects, which would later be considered for official ad ...

project.

References

External links

Astronomers Find World with Thick, Inhospitable Atmosphere and an Icy Heart
{{Stars of Ophiuchus

1214 Year 1214 ( MCCXIV) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar, the 1214th year of the Common Era (CE) and ''Anno Domini'' (AD) designations, the 214th year of the 2nd millennium, the ...

Ophiuchus (constellation) M-type main-sequence stars Planetary systems with one confirmed planet Planetary transit variables TIC objects

Planetary system

See also

References

External links