HD 196885 is a binary star system in the northern constellation of Delphinus. It comprises a pair of stars, HD 196885 A and HD 196885 B, on a 69-year eccentric orbit. The primary star has one known planet.
Stellar properties
HD 196885 A (center) and B (top left) imaged by SPHERE
The primary star is near the lower limit of visibility to the naked eye with an apparent visual magnitude of 6.39. It is located at a distance of 110.9light-years from the Sun. It is drifting closer with a radial velocity of −30km/s, and is expected to come to within 52.5 light-years in 836,000years.
The secondary, component B, is a red dwarf star separated by 0.6 arcseconds from the primary star that was discovered in 2006 with NaCo at VLT. It has a class in the range M1V to M3V with 51% of the Sun's mass.
The star BD+10 4351B, located 192 arcseconds away from HD 196885, was once thought to be a possible third component of the system, but Gaia astrometry shows a smaller parallax, indicating that it is an unrelated background star.
Planetary system
In 2004, an exoplanet, HD 196885 Ab, was announced to be orbiting the star HD 196885 A in a 386-day orbit. Follow-up work published in 2008 did not confirm the original candidate but instead found evidence of a planet in a 3.63 years orbit. Perturbation by the secondary star in this system may have driven the planet into a high inclination orbit. The planetary existence was confirmed and parameters were refined by 2022.
↑Gray, R. O.; etal. (2001), "The Physical Basis of Luminosity Classification in the Late A-, F-, and Early G-Type Stars. I. Precise Spectral Types for 372 Stars", The Astronomical Journal, 121 (4): 2148, Bibcode:2001AJ....121.2148G, doi:10.1086/319956, S2CID117076031