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Concept
Gliese 876 b
Summary
Gliese 876 b is an exoplanet orbiting the red dwarf Gliese 876. It completes one orbit in approximately 61 days. Discovered in June 1998, Gliese 876 b was the first planet to be discovered orbiting a red dwarf.
Gliese 876 b was initially announced by Geoffrey Marcy on June 22, 1998 at a symposium of the International Astronomical Union in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. The discovery was made using data from the Keck and Lick observatories. Only 2 hours after his announcement, he was shown an e-mail from the Geneva Extrasolar Planet Search team confirming the planet. The Geneva team used telescopes at the Haute-Provence Observatory in France and the European Southern Observatory in La Serena, Chile. Like the majority of early extrasolar planet discoveries it was discovered by detecting variations in its star's radial velocity as a result of the planet's gravity. This was done by making sensitive measurements of the Doppler shift of the spectral lines of Gliese 876. It was the first discovered of four known planets in the Gliese 876 system.
Given the planet's high mass, it is likely that Gliese 876 b is a gas giant with no solid surface. Since the planet has only been detected indirectly through its gravitational effects on the star, properties such as its radius, composition, and temperature are unknown. Assuming a composition similar to Jupiter and an environment close to chemical equilibrium, it is predicted that the atmosphere of Gliese 876 b is cloudless, though cooler regions of the planet may be able to form water clouds.
A limitation of the radial velocity method used to detect Gliese 876 b is that only a lower limit on the planet's mass can be obtained. This lower limit is around 1.93 times the mass of Jupiter. The true mass depends on the inclination of the orbit, which in general is unknown. However, because Gliese 876 is only 15 light years from Earth Benedict et al. (2002) were able to use one of the Fine Guidance Sensors on the Hubble Space Telescope to detect the astrometric wobble created by Gliese 876 b.
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