55 Cancri f (abbreviated 55 Cnc f), also designated Rho¹ Cancri f and formally named Harriot , is an exoplanet approximately 41 light-years away from Earth in the constellation of

Cancer Cancer is a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Possible signs and symptoms include a lump, abnormal b ...

(the Crab). 55 Cancri f is the fourth known planet (in order of distance) from the star 55 Cancri and the first planet to have been given the designation of "f".

Name

In July 2014 the

International Astronomical Union The International Astronomical Union (IAU; french: link=yes, Union astronomique internationale, UAI) is a nongovernmental organisation with the objective of advancing astronomy in all aspects, including promoting astronomical research, outreac ...

launched

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 ...

, a process for giving proper names to certain exoplanets and their host stars. The process involved public nomination and voting for the new names. In December 2015, the IAU announced the winning name was Harriot for this planet. The winning name was submitted by the Royal Netherlands Association for Meteorology and Astronomy of the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

. It honors the astronomer

Thomas Harriot Thomas Harriot (; – 2 July 1621), also spelled Harriott, Hariot or Heriot, was an English astronomer, mathematician, ethnographer and translator to whom the theory of refraction is attributed. Thomas Harriot was also recognized for his con ...

Discovery

The initial presentation of this planet occurred at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society in April 2005, however it was another two and a half years before the planet was to be published in a peer-reviewed journal. It is the first known planet outside our solar system to spend its entire orbit within what astronomers call the "

habitable zone In astronomy and astrobiology, the circumstellar habitable zone (CHZ), or simply the habitable zone, is the range of orbits around a star within which a planetary surface can support liquid water given sufficient atmospheric pressure.J. F. Kast ...

". Furthermore, its discovery made 55 Cancri the first star other than 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 ...

known to have at least five planets.

Orbit and mass

55 Cancri f is located about 0.781 AU away from the star and takes 262 days to complete a full orbit. A limitation of the radial velocity method used to detect 55 Cancri f is that only a

minimum mass In astronomy, minimum mass is the lower-bound calculated mass of observed objects such as planets, stars and binary systems, nebulae, and black holes. Minimum mass is a widely cited statistic for extrasolar planets detected by the radial veloci ...

can be obtained, in this case around 0.144 times that of Jupiter, or half the mass of Saturn. A Keplerian fit to the radial velocity data of 55 Cancri A indicates that the orbit is consistent with being circular, however changing the value in a range between 0 and 0.4 does not significantly alter the

chi-squared statistic A chi-squared test (also chi-square or test) is a statistical hypothesis test used in the analysis of contingency tables when the sample sizes are large. In simpler terms, this test is primarily used to examine whether two categorical variables ...

of the fit, thus a representative eccentricity of 0.2±0.2 was assumed. In a Newtonian model which takes interactions between the planets into account, the eccentricity comes out as 0.0002, almost perfectly circular. Astrometric observations made with the

Hubble Space Telescope The Hubble Space Telescope (often referred to as HST or Hubble) is a space telescope that was launched into low Earth orbit in 1990 and remains in operation. It was not the first space telescope, but it is one of the largest and most vers ...

suggest that the outer planet 55 Cancri d is inclined at 53° with respect to the plane of the sky. The inner planets b and e are inclined at 85°. The inclination of f is unknown.

Characteristics

Since the planet was detected indirectly through observations of its star, properties such as its

radius In classical geometry, a radius ( : radii) of a circle or sphere is any of the line segments from its center to its perimeter, and in more modern usage, it is also their length. The name comes from the latin ''radius'', meaning ray but also the ...

, composition and

temperature Temperature is a physical quantity that expresses quantitatively the perceptions of hotness and coldness. Temperature is measurement, measured with a thermometer. Thermometers are calibrated in various Conversion of units of temperature, temp ...

are unknown. With a mass half that of Saturn, 55 Cancri f is likely to be a

gas giant A gas giant is a giant planet composed mainly of hydrogen and helium. Gas giants are also called failed stars because they contain the same basic elements as a star. Jupiter and Saturn are the gas giants of the Solar System. The term "gas giant" ...

with no solid surface. It orbits in the so-called "

," which means that

liquid water Water (chemical formula ) is an inorganic, transparent, tasteless, odorless, and nearly colorless chemical substance, which is the main constituent of Earth's hydrosphere and the fluids of all known living organisms (in which it acts as a s ...

could exist on the surface of a possible moon. It is not known if the composition and appearance is more like that of Saturn or Neptune.

References

External links