HD 41248 is a star in the

constellation A constellation is an area on the celestial sphere in which a group of visible stars forms Asterism (astronomy), a perceived pattern or outline, typically representing an animal, mythological subject, or inanimate object. The origins of the e ...

Pictor Pictor is a constellation in the Southern Celestial Hemisphere, located between the star Canopus and the Large Magellanic Cloud. Its name is Latin for Painting, painter, and is an abbreviation of the older name Equuleus Pictoris (the "painter's ...

. It is a star very similar to the Sun, with the same spectral type (G2V). It has 68% of the Sun's luminosity, 92% of its mass and 78% of its diameter. It is estimated to be around 2 billion years old, and it has a lower metallicity—43% that of the Sun. With an apparent visual magnitude of 8.81, it is too faint to be seen with the unaided eye, and is located around 170 light-years (52 parsecs) away from 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 ...

. HD 41248 was investigated in the

High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher 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. H ...

(HARPS) and initially thought not to have planets, but review of its spectrum showed it to have two super-earths with orbital periods of 18.357 days and 25.648 days and minimum masses 12.3 and 8.6 times that of the Earth. The planets are in a 7:5 mean motion resonance. The existence of the planets has been called into question as being a possible false detection due to stellar activity, with a cycle of 25 days related to the star's rotational period. The original researchers conceded small planet signals could be difficult to unravel from signal noise and noted that the star had become more active in recent years, but in reanalysing all the data concluded that the stability of the radial velocity signals over ten years strengthened the case for the planet hypothesis. They add that more conclusive proof could come as instruments operating in the near infrared such as CARMENES or the Habitable Zone Planet Finder (HPF) become operational.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:HD 41248 Pictor (constellation) G-type main-sequence stars 041248 028460 Durchmusterung objects