LHS 3844 is a

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 located away from the Solar System in the constellation of

Indus The Indus ( ) is a transboundary river of Asia and a trans-Himalayan river of South and Central Asia. The river rises in mountain springs northeast of Mount Kailash in Western Tibet, flows northwest through the disputed region of Kashmir, ...

. The star has about 15% the mass and 19% the radius of the Sun. It is a relatively inactive red dwarf with a slow

rotation period The rotation period of a celestial object (e.g., star, gas giant, planet, moon, asteroid) may refer to its sidereal rotation period, i.e. the time that the object takes to complete a single revolution around its axis of rotation relative to the ...

of about 128 days, though UV

flares A flare, also sometimes called a fusée, fusee, or bengala in some Latin-speaking countries, is a type of pyrotechnic that produces a bright light or intense heat without an explosion. Flares are used for distress signaling, illumination, o ...

have been observed. LHS 3844 is orbited by one known

exoplanet 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 ...

Nomenclature

The designation ''LHS 3844'' comes from one of Luyten's catalogues of stars with high

proper motion Proper motion is the astrometric measure of the observed changes in the apparent places of stars or other celestial objects in the sky, as seen from the center of mass of the Solar System, compared to the abstract background of the more dista ...

. In August 2022, this planetary system was included among 20 systems to be named by the third NameExoWorlds project. The approved names, proposed by a team from

Costa Rica Costa Rica (, ; ; literally "Rich Coast"), officially the Republic of Costa Rica ( es, República de Costa Rica), is a country in the Central American region of North America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the no ...

, were announced in June 2023. LHS 3844 is named Batsũ̀ and its planet is named Kua'kua, after the Bribri words for "hummingbird" and "butterfly".

Planetary system

The exoplanet

LHS 3844 b LHS 3844 b, formally named Kua'kua, is an exoplanet orbiting the red dwarf LHS 3844, about away in the constellation Indus (constellation), Indus, discovered using the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite. It orbits its parent star once every 1 ...

was discovered in 2018 using TESS. It is a terrestrial planet larger than Earth with an orbital period of less than a day, and likely does not have an atmosphere. Its low albedo suggests that its surface may resemble that of the Moon or

Mercury Mercury commonly refers to: * Mercury (planet), the nearest planet to the Sun * Mercury (element), a metallic chemical element with the symbol Hg * Mercury (mythology), a Roman god Mercury or The Mercury may also refer to: Companies * Merc ...

References

{{Indus (constellation) Indus (constellation) M-type main-sequence stars Planetary systems with one confirmed planet 0136 Batsũ̀