GJ 463 b: A Distant Planet Orbiting a Small Red Dwarf

GJ 463 is an M3 V star, a small, cool red dwarf, located 59.9 light-years from Earth. Its spectral type marks it as a main-sequence dwarf. The star's reported mass estimate is 0.49 solar masses and its radius is 0.49 solar radii, both smaller than the Sun's. Its temperature is 3540 K, cooler than the Sun's. One planet is known to orbit this host.

That planet, GJ 463 b, was discovered in 2022 using the radial velocity method, which measures the wobble a planet's gravity induces in its star's motion; repeated wobbles reveal the planet and its orbital period. GJ 463 b has a minimum mass of 524 Earth masses, a lower bound on its true mass. That minimum mass is larger than Earth's and roughly 1.65 times Jupiter's mass. The planet completes one orbit in 3460 days.