THE PLANETThe circle toward lower right shows the location of the class G dwarf HD 210277 Aquarii in the constellation Aquarius. The star's planet has a mass at least 1.28 times that of Jupiter and orbits with a period of 1.20 years at an average distance from its star of 1.10 Astronomical Units (165 million kilometers, 102 million miles), just 10 percent larger than Earth's orbit around the Sun. A high orbital eccentricity takes the planet between 1.59 and 0.60 AU from its star, the latter 83 percent the size of Venus's orbit. |