54 Piscium b is a Methane Dwarf Star with a Cool Temperature. It is an extrasolar planet located approximately 36 light-years away in the constellation Pisces, and is sometimes referred to as 54 Piscium Ab to distinguish it from the brown dwarf in the system. It is not part of the Pisces constellation outline, but it is within its boundaries. The star’s parallax is given as 90.03000, resulting in a calculated distance to 54 Piscium B of 36.23 light-years or 11.11 parsecs from Earth. It is approximately 212,982,597,270,442 miles away from Earth.
The planet was discovered in the vicinity of the orange dwarf star 54 Piscium. The cool methane dwarf Star’s position in the night sky is determined by the Right Ascension (R.A.) and Declination (Dec.), which are equivalent to Longitude and Latitude on Earth. The planet’s minimum mass is one-fifth that of Jupiter, and it orbits the star every two months in a highly eccentric orbit.
The brown dwarf 54 Piscium B is 36.2 light-years from the Sun. It is a single star with a spectral class of T7.5 V and a mass of 5% that of the Sun. There are currently no known exoplanets in this system.
Physical characteristics
The planet orbits its sun at a distance of 0.28 astronomical units (about the same as Mercury’s orbit), which takes about 62 days. The eccentricity of the planet is approximately 0.63. The planet’s highly elliptical orbit, on the other hand, suggested that the gravity of an unseen object farther away from the star was pulling it outward. With the discovery of the brown dwarf within the system, the eccentric orbit became clear.
Discovery
On January 16, 2003, a team of astronomers led by Geoff Marcy announced the discovery of an extrasolar planet orbiting 54 Piscium using the radial velocity method, a method that takes advantage of the “wobbling” effect that a star may experience if something tugs on it. The star’s spectral type is T7.5, 54 Piscium B, and its color and type are brown cool methane dwarf Star. The planet’s mass is estimated to be only 20 percent that of Jupiter (making the planet around the same size and mass as Saturn).
Orbit and mass
The planet orbits its sun at a distance of 0.28 astronomical units (about the same as Mercury’s orbit), which takes about 62 days. The star is approximately 2,291,586.03 Astronomical Units from Earth/Sun, give or take a few. The eccentricity of the planet is approximately 0.63. The distance between Earth and the Sun is measured in Astronomical Units. The number of A.U. denotes how far away the star is from the Earth in comparison to the Sun. The planet’s highly elliptical orbit, on the other hand, suggested that the gravity of an unseen object farther away from the star was pulling it outward. With the discovery of the brown dwarf within the system, the eccentric orbit became clear.
Perturbation
An Earth-like planet’s orbit would need to be centered within 0.68 AU (around Venus’s orbital distance), which in a Keplerian system means a 240-day orbital period. 54 Piscium b’s orbit “sweeps clean” most test particles within 0.5 AU in a 2006 simulation, leaving only asteroids “in low-eccentricity orbits near the known planet’s apastron distance, near the 1:2 mean-motion resonance.” Observation has also ruled out Neptune-class or heavier planets with periods of one year or less, leaving Earth-sized planets at 0.6 AU or more.
