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Planet profiles

GJ 15 A b

Rocky Terrestrial · 12 light-years away · Last reviewed October 14, 2026

GJ 15 A b rendered in TerraForge from its measured mass, orbit and star
TerraForge's rendering of GJ 15 A b, generated by our physics engine from its measured mass, size, orbit and star. An illustration of what the science suggests, not a photograph.
TerraForge classification
Rocky Terrestrial
Host star
GJ 15 A (M1)
Distance
12 light-years
Orbit
11.4 days
Mass
3.03 × Earth
Radius
1.55 × Earth
Discovered
2014, radial velocity

Figures from the NASA Exoplanet Archive. The classification is TerraForge’s, from its physics model.

GJ 15 A b is a super-Earth whose existence has been argued over. It orbits GJ 15 A, a red dwarf about 11.6 light-years away that has its own companion red dwarf, GJ 15 B. Together with its outer sibling GJ 15 A c, it makes GJ 15 A one of the closest known stars with more than one planet.

A team led by Andrew Howard announced it in 2014 from Keck Observatory's HIRES spectrograph, using the radial velocity method: a planet's gravity makes its star move slightly toward and away from us, shifting the star's light. They found a planet on an 11.44-day orbit with a minimum mass of about 5.35 Earth masses, and checked the star's brightness to rule out starspots at that period. They also found a second signal at 44 days, which they traced to the star's rotation rather than a planet.

Then the planet seemed to vanish. In 2018 a team led by T. Trifonov, using the CARMENES spectrograph and newer HIRES data, found no signal at 11.4 days and could not confirm it. Later that year a team led by M. Pinamonti combined five years of HARPS-N measurements with 15 years of Keck data, modelled the star's activity, and recovered the planet. Their signal was weaker, so they lowered its minimum mass to about 3 Earth masses. NASA has described its history as discovered, refuted, then reinstated with more data.

At that close an orbit it is hot; NASA's summary puts its surface temperature at about 530 degrees Fahrenheit, far too hot for liquid water. It has never been seen passing in front of its star, so its size and true mass are unknown. Its story is a good example of how hard it is to separate small planets from a star's own activity, and of why astronomers keep measuring.

Sources

  1. The NASA-UC-UH Eta-Earth Program: IV. A Low-mass Planet Orbiting an M Dwarf 3.6 PC from Earth — arXiv (The Astrophysical Journal)
  2. The CARMENES search for exoplanets around M dwarfs. First visual-channel radial-velocity measurements and orbital parameter updates of seven M-dwarf planetary systems — arXiv (Astronomy & Astrophysics)
  3. The HADES RV Programme with HARPS-N@TNG VIII. Gl15A: A multiple wide planetary system sculpted by binary interaction — arXiv (Astronomy & Astrophysics)
  4. Discovery Alert: 2-Planet System is Close and Weird — NASA
A banded gas giant with four moons in different colors: a yellow sulfur moon, two rust-red rock moons and a blue water moon

New: Choose What Your Moons Are Made Of 🌙

Every moon used to be grey rock, white ice or blue ocean, decided for you. Now each one has a "Made of" choice in the builder's Moons tab — silicate rock, iron, water ice, carbon, sulfur, or nitrogen and methane ice — and the physics decides what that becomes. Put water ice too close to the star and it boils off to bare rock. Put sulfur where a neighbouring moon keeps it tidally flexed and it erupts in Io's yellows. Give a Titan-sized moon nitrogen ice far from the sun and it wraps itself in haze. Hang a water moon about the mass of Earth off a giant planet in the habitable zone and it can hold air and open seas — scored for life on the same scale as a planet, with a day as long as its orbit. A tint slider nudges the colour, but only as far as that material could really go.

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