![]() In 1996, astronomers announced the potential presence of a so-called 'hot Jupiter' exoplanet - a gas giant similar to Jupiter but much closer to its star than Jupiter is to the Sun - in orbit around Zeta 2. Credit: NASA/Ames/JPL-Caltechīecause the stars are similar to our Sun, if an Earth-like planet were in orbit around the stars at the right distance, liquid water might be able to pool on that planet's surface, and the conditions might be right for life as we know it to flourish. These are exoplanets similar to Jupiter in our own Solar System, but orbiting much closer to their host star. Are there planets around Zeta Reticuli? An artist's conception of a hot Jupiter. It is slightly brighter at magnitude 5.22 and is a yellow dwarf of class G2. Zeta 2 is about 99% the mass and 99% the radius of the Sun. It is a yellow main sequence star of class G3 with a magnitude or brightness of 5.52 (for more on this, read our guide to stellar spectral classifications and stellar magnitude). Zeta 1 Reticuli has a mass equal to about 96% that of the Sun, and a radius about 92% of the Sun. ![]() What makes these stars really interesting is that, relatively speaking, they are much like our own Sun, making them so-called solar analogs and of interest to astronomers who can compare them to our Solar System's host star. The stars orbit a common centre of gravity over a period that is likely more than 170,000 Earth years, and are thought to be between 1.5 and 3 billions years old. The two stars, Zeta 1 (ζ1) Reticuli and Zeta 2 (ζ2) Reticuli are located just over 39 lightyears from Earth and are separated from each other by a distance of at least 3,750 Astronomical Units (AU), where 1 AU is the average distance between Earth and the Sun. Credit: Pete Lawrence / BBC Sky at Night Magazine. Zeta Reticuli (left), the constellation Reticulum and the Large Magellanic Cloud, captured in 2013 by Pete Lawrence from Paranal, Chile. Zeta Reticuli can be seen clearly as a double star even with the naked eye, provided you're viewing it under properly dark skies. Unfortunately this means that the Zeta Reticuli binary pair cannot be seen from the UK, but it's certainly worth seeking out if you find yourself under the southern hemisphere skylooking for celestial objects that would otherwise be out of range. Zeta Reticuli is a binary star system that can be found in the constellation of Reticulum and is visible in the night sky from the southern hemisphere. ![]() Zeta Reticuli: facts about the binary star sytem ![]()
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