HD 45350 b

HD 45350 b is an extrasolar planet located approximately 160 light-years away in the constellation of Auriga. It has a minimum mass about 1.79 times that of Jupiter. The mean distance of the planet from the star is more than the distance between Mars and the Sun, but the eccentricity of the orbit is nothing short of remarkable; at periastron the planet is as close to the star as Mercury is from the Sun, but at apastron it is 8 times further. No doubt seasons on the planet would be extreme.

Dynamical simulations covering a period of 10⁷ years show that a second, low-mass, planet could only orbit stably if it were no more than 0.2 AU away from the star; in the simulations, these planets show oscillations in eccentricity up to an eccentricity of 0.25. Radial velocity observations rule out any such planet whose mass is greater than 4 Neptune masses.