94 Ceti

(The Planet Project)

In addition to a planet, 94 Ceti also hosts a much more distant binary companion.

THE PLANET

The left-hand circle shows the location of the class F8 star 94 Ceti (in the constellation Cetus). The planet has a lower mass limit of 2.0 times the mass of Jupiter in a relatively large (for these discovered planets), fairly circular, orbit of 1.3 Astronomical Units (195 million kilometers, 120 million miles), 30 percent larger than the orbit of the Earth. Taking 454 days to make a complete circuit, the planet comes as close as 1.0 AU to its parent star and as far as 1.6 AU.

THE STAR

94 Ceti is a fairly-easily-seen fifth magnitude star (magnitude 5.06) class F (F8) dwarf 73 light years away. Some 30 percent more massive than the Sun and therefore somewhat hotter (6220 Kelvin), it shines with a luminosity 3.8 times solar, its radius 1.7 times solar. Like many of the stars that support these planets, it is metal- rich, its iron content 1.8 times greater (relative to hydrogen) than solar. The star-planet combination is orbited every 1420 years by a distant M dwarf companion that averages 150 AU away, but can come as close as 112 AU and go as far as 190 AU. From 94 Ceti proper, the companion would typically shine as bright as a full Moon.

79 Ceti, toward the right in the picture, also has an orbiting planet.
Written by Jim Kaler. Return to The Planet Project or go to STARS.