ARICNS data Constellation Ursa Major | Magnitude 11.959 People also search for Feige 55, ADS 7251 | |
HIP 57050 (GJ 1148 / LHS 2443 / G 122-40 / Ross 1003) is an red dwarf 36 light-years from the Sun with a planetary companion HIP 57050 b.
HIP 57050 has a metallicity twice that of the Sun and is among the highest in the immediate solar neighborhood.
HIP 57050 b
A team led by astronomer Nader Haghighipour reported the discovery of a Saturn-sized planet in the habitable zone of the star in 2010. According to Haghighipour, the detection is important because it "indicates that observational techniques are on the right track for finding habitable low-mass rocky planets similar to Earth."
According to its discoverers, HIP 57050 b provides support for the proposition that planet-bearing M-class stars tend to be metal-rich, a correlation already observed in F, G and K-class stars.
At the expected planetary effective temperature, the atmosphere may contain water clouds, potentially detectable by the Hubble Space Telescope if it could capture a planetary transit.
The planet's discoverers speculated about the possibility of a habitable moon:
Paul Gilster of the Tau Zero Foundation has commented:
"Based on our knowledge of the gas giants in our own Solar System, it’s a natural supposition that this is a world with moons, and if so, their location in the habitable zone draws inevitable comparisons with fictional worlds like Pandora."Gilster suggested that an Earth-sized moon could exist around the planet if it were captured after forming independently.