Confirmed exoplanet · Database record + computed analysis
GJ 876 c
A confirmed world orbiting GJ 876, 15.2 light-years away.
A gas giant
14.00 Earth radii, Jupiter-class (Jupiter is 11.2). At only 227.0 Earth masses for that size, it must be substantially gas or volatile ices: puffy, not rocky.
The orbit
Its year, one full orbit, takes just 30.1 Earth days.
Temperature and starlight
Its equilibrium temperature (the airless-world estimate) is about -31 °C. In the range where, with the right atmosphere, liquid water is conceivable; a real atmosphere could shift the true surface figure a lot (Earth's equilibrium value is −18 °C, yet we average +15 °C). It receives 0.74 times Earth's starlight, the same order as our own world.
Its sun
Its star is a red dwarf (3,294 K surface), type M2.5V: small, dim, flare-prone, and destined to outlive the Sun many times over. It shares the system with 3 other known planets.
How far is that, really?
At 15 light-years, tonight's light from this system left it around the year 2010. That is close by galactic standards, which makes it a prime target for follow-up telescopes. A Voyager-speed probe would need roughly 269,783 years to get there.
How we found it
It was found by the radial-velocity method: the planet's gravity swings its star in a small circle, and that wobble shows up as a rhythmic Doppler shift in the starlight. The wobble's size gives the planet's minimum mass. The discovery was announced in 2000 from Multiple Observatories.
Everything above is computed from the archive’s measured values for this planet. Where a quantity is missing, the statement is omitted rather than guessed.
About this record
The measured values come from the NASA Exoplanet Archive, and any missing value has not been determined yet; the Atlas never fills gaps with guesses. More standout worlds: Proxima b, TRAPPIST-1e, K2-18 b, 55 Cancri e, and the detection methods that found them all.