DP Leonis
Encyclopedia
DP Leonis is an eclipsing binary system approximately 1304 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 from the Sun, probably a cataclysmic variable star of the AM Herculis
AM Herculis
AM Herculis is a red dwarf variable star located in the constellation Hercules. This star, along with the star AN Ursae Majoris, is the prototype for a category of cataclysmic variable stars called polars, or AM Her type stars.-History:...

-type also known as polars
Polar (cataclysmic variable)
A Polar is a type of cataclysmic variable binary star system with a very strong magnetic field.In most cataclysmic variables, matter from a main-sequence companion star is gravitationally stripped by a white dwarf star in the form of an accretion disk. In polar systems, the magnetic field of the...

. The system comprises an eclipsing white dwarf
White dwarf
A white dwarf, also called a degenerate dwarf, is a small star composed mostly of electron-degenerate matter. They are very dense; a white dwarf's mass is comparable to that of the Sun and its volume is comparable to that of the Earth. Its faint luminosity comes from the emission of stored...

 star and red dwarf
Red dwarf
According to the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram, a red dwarf star is a small and relatively cool star, of the main sequence, either late K or M spectral type....

 star in tight orbit (nearly 1.5 hours) and 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...

.

Planetary system

In 2010, Qian et al. announced the detection of a third body of planetary mass around the eclipsing binary system. The presence of a third body had already been suspected in 2002. The object is roughly 6 times more massive than 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,...

 and is located 8.6 AU
Astronomical unit
An astronomical unit is a unit of length equal to about or approximately the mean Earth–Sun distance....

 from the binary.

See also

  • AM Herculis
    AM Herculis
    AM Herculis is a red dwarf variable star located in the constellation Hercules. This star, along with the star AN Ursae Majoris, is the prototype for a category of cataclysmic variable stars called polars, or AM Her type stars.-History:...

  • NN Serpentis
    NN Serpentis
    NN Serpentis is an eclipsing binary system approximately 1670 light-years away, likely a cataclysmic variable star. The system comprises an eclipsing white dwarf star and red dwarf star...

  • QS Virginis
    QS Virginis
    QS Virginis is an eclipsing binary system approximately 157 light-years away from Sun, forming a cataclysmic variable...

  • List of extrasolar planets
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