Lupus-TR-3b is an extrasolar planet

Extrasolar planet

An extrasolar planet, or exoplanet, is a planet outside the Solar System. A total of such planets have been identified as of . It is now known that a substantial fraction of stars have planets, including perhaps half of all Sun-like stars...

 orbiting the star Lupus-TR-3

Lupus-TR-3

Lupus-TR-3 is a dim magnitude 17 K-type main sequence star approximately 8,950 light-years distant in the constellation of Lupus.-Planetary system:...

 (a K-type main sequence star approximately 8,950 light-year

Light-year

A light-year, also light year or lightyear is a unit of length, equal to just under 10 trillion kilometres...

s away in the constellation

Constellation

In modern astronomy, a constellation is an internationally defined area of the celestial sphere. These areas are grouped around asterisms, patterns formed by prominent stars within apparent proximity to one another on Earth's night sky....

 Lupus

Lupus (constellation)

Lupus is a constellation in the southern sky. Its name is Latin for wolf. Lupus was one of the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd century astronomer Ptolemy, and it remains one of the 88 modern constellations...

). The planet was discovered in 2007 by personnel from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics

Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics

The Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics is one of the largest and most diverse astrophysical institutions in the world, where scientists carry out a broad program of research in astronomy, astrophysics, earth and space sciences, and science education...

 observing at the Siding Spring Observatory

Siding Spring Observatory

Siding Spring Observatory near Coonabarabran, New South Wales, Australia, part of the Research School of Astronomy & Astrophysics at the Australian National University , incorporates the Anglo-Australian Telescope along with a collection of other telescopes owned by the Australian National...

 in Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

, by the transit method.

The planet has four-fifths the mass of Jupiter

Jupiter

Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest planet within the Solar System. It is a gas giant with mass one-thousandth that of the Sun but is two and a half times the mass of all the other planets in our Solar System combined. Jupiter is classified as a gas giant along with Saturn,...

, nine-tenths the radius, and has density of 1.4 g/cm³. This planet is a typical “Hot Jupiter

Hot Jupiter

Hot Jupiters are a class of extrasolar planet whose mass is close to or exceeds that of Jupiter...

” as it orbits at 0.0464 AU

Astronomical unit

An astronomical unit is a unit of length equal to about or approximately the mean Earth–Sun distance....

 distance from the star, taking 3.9 days to orbit. It is currently the faintest ground-based detection of a transiting planet.

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