What was the name of the first extrasolar planet?

Question

What was the name of the first extrasolar planet and when was it discovered?

Answer 1

If you know that it has a name (nickname) then you are thinking of the star 51 Pegasi and the exoplanet 51 Pegasi b and the name it was given is Bellerophon.

Bellerophon in Greek mythology was a hero who tamed the winged horse Pegasus and rode it to slay the fearsome monster, the Chimera,

Bellerophon is the prototypical hot Jupiter. The planet orbits the star in around 4 Earth days, and is much closer to it than Mercury is to our Sun, with estimated temperatures of around 1000 degrees Celsius (1800 degrees Fahrenheit), yet has a minimum mass about half that of Jupiter (about 150 times that of the Earth).

At the time, the presence of a huge world so close to its star was not compatible with theories of planet formation and was considered an anomaly. However, since then, numerous other 'hot Jupiters' have been discovered (55 Cancri and τ Boötis, for example), and astronomers are revising their theories of planet formation to account for them by studying orbital migration.

Bellerophon's discovery was announced on October 6, 1995 by Michael Mayor and Didier Queloz. They used the radial velocity method at the Observatoire de Haute-Provence with the ELODIE spectrograph.

However this was not the first exoplanet discovered, merely the first exoplanet revolving around a Main Sequence star. 51 Pegasi is of spectral type G2.5 V, very similar to our Sun, which is G2 V.

51 Pegasi is a Sun-like star 15.4 parsecs (50.1 light-years) from Earth in the constellation Pegasus. It was the first Sun-like star to be found to have a planet orbiting it

The star itself is of apparent magnitude 5.49, and so is visible from the Earth with binoculars, or with the naked eye by those with good vision in very dark sky conditions. 51 Pegasi is a yellow dwarf star estimated to be 7.5 billion years old, somewhat older than the Sun, 4-6% more massive, with more metal content and running low in hydrogen.

The distinction of being the first star to be discovered with exoplanets belongs to the pulsar PSR B1257+12 located 980 light years from Earth.

As of 2002, it is believed to be orbited by four extrasolar planets. Two of these were the first extrasolar planets ever discovered.

The star PSR B1257+12 was discovered by the Polish astronomer Aleksander Wolszczan in 1990 using the Arecibo radio telescope. It is a millisecond pulsar, a kind of neutron star, and was found to have anomalies in the pulsation period, which led to investigations as to the cause of the irregular pulses. It has a rotation period of 6.22 milliseconds.

In 1992, Aleksander Wolszczan and Dale Frail discovered that the pulsar has two planets. These were the first extrasolar planets ever discovered; as pulsar planets, they surprised many astronomers who expected to find planets only around main sequence stars.

Later, an additional planet was discovered. Additionally, this system may have an asteroid belt or a Kuiper belt.

PSR B1257+12 A is the innermost planet orbiting the pulsar at a distance of 0.19 AU with an orbital period of approximately 25 days.

PSR B1257+12 B is the second planet orbiting the pulsar at a distance of 0.36 AU with an orbital period of approximately 66 days. The planet is over four times as massive as the Earth.

PSR B1257+12 C is the third planet orbiting the pulsar at an average orbital distance of 0.46 AU with an orbital period of approximately 98 days. It is nearly four times as massive as the Earth.

It is suspected that an asteroid or comet is orbiting PSR B1257+12 at an average orbital distance of 2.6 AU with an orbital period of approximately 3.5 years. The object is so small that it is not even considered to be a planet, but it is the first known extrasolar asteroid or comet akin to the objects in the Kuiper belt in our solar system.

It is possible that this object is the largest member of a belt of minor objects around the pulsar. It has an upper mass limit of 0.2 Plutos (0.0004 Earths) and a maximum diameter of 1000 km. However, this object is not yet confirmed. This object is sometimes referred to as PSR B1257+12 D

Because of the intense radiation associated with neutron stars, planets orbiting them would not be habitable.

Answer 2

PSR 1257+12 A (extrasolar planets don't get names, they get designations based on the star (or in this case the pulsar) they orbit)

It was discovered in 1992.

Answer 3

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PSR_1257%2B12#Planets

Answer 4

well i definately know that is not pluto...so you have a one in eight chance of getting it right

Answer 5

jupiter