Discovery of Gliese 876 d

Gliese 876 d is an exoplanet announced in 2005, orbiting the red dwarf Gliese 876 in the constellation Aquarius, about fifteen light-years from the Sun. It was found by Eugenio Rivera and colleagues using the radial velocity technique, with data from the Keck telescope. At the time it was among the lowest-mass planets known around a normal star, at a few times the mass of Earth, and probably rocky. It orbits extremely close to its star, in under two days, and is too hot for life. The system also contains two giant planets, which interact through orbital resonance.

Open on the timeline