NASA (Exoplanet Catalog artwork)2M1207b
The first exoplanet ever photographed, glowing red around a brown dwarf
Overview
2M1207b is a planetary-mass object orbiting the brown dwarf 2M1207, in the constellation Centaurus, approximately 170 light-years from Earth. It is one of the first candidate exoplanets to be directly observed. It was discovered in April 2004 by the Very Large Telescope (VLT) at the Paranal Observatory in Chile by a team from the European Southern Observatory led by Gaël Chauvin. It is believed to be from 5 to 6 times the mass of Jupiter and may orbit 2M1207 at a distance roughly as far from the brown dwarf as Pluto is from the Sun.
Source: Wikipedia
NASA: 2MASS J12073346-3932539 b is a gas giant exoplanet that orbits a M-type star. Its mass is 5.2 Jupiters, it takes 720 years to complete one orbit of its star, and is 46 AU from its star. Its discovery was announced in 2004.
Why it matters
- Imaged in 2004 with the VLT; it orbits a brown dwarf roughly 40 AU away.
- About 5 Jupiter masses and only around 10 million years old, so still hot from formation.
- JWST later detected silicate clouds and signs of weather in its atmosphere.
NASA puts it this way: “2MASS J12073346-3932539 b is a gas giant exoplanet that orbits an M-type star. Its mass is 5 Jupiters, it takes 2885.9 years to complete one orbit of its star, and is 55.0 AU from its star. Its discovery was announced in 2004.”
Discovery & system
- Discovered
- 2004 · Imaging · Paranal Observatory
- Discovery paper
- Chauvin et al. 2004
- Host star
- 2MASS J12073346-3932539 · M8 · 2,825 K · 0.19 M☉
- System
- 1 known planet
The system
| World | Period | Distance | Radius | Mass | Temp. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2MASS J12073346-3932539 b | 719.5 yr | 46 AU | 1.4 R♃ | 5.2 M♃ | 1,163 K |
By the numbers
- Radius
- 1.4 R♃15.7 R⊕
- Mass
- 5.2 M♃1,653 M⊕
- Distance from star
- 46 AU6,882 million km
- Equilibrium temp.
- 1,163 K890 °C
- Starlight received
- 0 × Earth
- Distance from Earth
- 210 ly64.3 pc
- Density
- 2.35 g/cm³0.43 × Earth
Sources
Image: NASA (Exoplanet Catalog artwork) · NASA media: generally free of copyright · image page
Text: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). Taglines and highlights are editorial.