THE PLANETThe upper circle shows the location of the class F dwarf star HD 50554, found in the constellation Gemini, the star of interest at dead center. The star's planet, with a mass at least 4.9 times that of Jupiter, orbits with a period of 1279 days, or 3.50 years, at an average distance of 2.38 Astronomical Units (357 million kilometers, 222 million miles), or 56 percent greater than the size of Mars's path around the Sun. A fairly high orbital eccentricity takes the planet from as far as 3.38 AU from its parent star to 1.38 AU. |