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51 Pegasi b

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Bellerophon is the first planet discovered around a sun like star outside of the solar system. It is the prototypical hot jupiter.

The name

The name of the exoplanet is "51 Peg b", the b used to indicate it is the first companion of its parent star. Further companions would be designated c, d, and so on. It has been informally named 'Bellerophon'. Bellerophon was a Greek hero who tamed a pegasus, hence its appropriateness as a name.

The planet

After its discovery many teams confirmed its existence and obtained more observations of its properties, including the fact it orbits very close to the star, suffers temperatures around 1000 Celsius, and is about half the mass of Jupiter. At the time this close distance was not compatible with theory and resulted in discussions of orbital migration.

The planet orbits the star 51 Pegasi in the Pegasus constellation.

  • Sidereal Period 4.23 days
  • Mean Distance 0.05 AU (7 million km)
  • Mass 0.47 of Jupiter
  • distance from Earth 50 light years

Discovery process

The exoplanet's discovery was announced on October 6 1995 by Michael Mayor and Didier Queloz in Nature, volume 378, page 355, using the radial velocity method at the Observatoire de Genève.

After the announcement, on October 12, 1995, confirmation came from Dr. Geoffrey Marcy from San Francisco State University and Dr. Paul Butler from the University of California, Berkeley using the Hamilton Spectrograph at the Lick Observatory near San Jose in California.

Discovery method

The planet was discovered using a sensitive spectroscope that could detect the slight, regular velocity changes in the star's spectral lines of around 70 metres per second. These changes are caused by the planet's gravitational effects from just 7 million kilometres distance from the star.

This discovery of this first exoplanet established a milestone in astronomical research, as it forced astronomers to realize that giant planets could exist in short period orbits. Once astronomers realized that it was worth looking for giant planets with the currently avaliable technology, much more telescope time was devoted to radial velocity planet searches, and hence many more exoplanets in the Sun's neighbourhood have been discovered.

Other resources

See also

External links

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