HN Librae explained

HN Librae, also known as Gliese 555, is a small star with one or more orbiting exoplanets in the constellation Libra. With an apparent visual magnitude of 11.32, it can only be viewed through a telescope. The system is located at a distance of 20.4 light years based on parallax measurements, but is drifting closer to the Sun with a radial velocity of −1.4 km/s. It does not appear to belong to any known stellar moving group or association.

This is an M-type main-sequence star, a red dwarf, with a stellar classification of M4.0V. The chromosphere of this star is weakly active, causing starspots that vary the stellar luminosity as it rotates. It has 29% of the mass of the Sun and 30% of the Sun's girth. On average, the star is radiating just 1% of the luminosity of the Sun from its photosphere at an effective temperature of 3,347 K. The star is spinning slowly with a rotation period of around 96 days.

Planetary system

In 2019, one planet candidate detected by radial velocity was reported in a preprint (never accepted for publication as of 2024), among 118 planets around M dwarf stars. This would have a minimum mass about 30 times that of Earth and orbit with a period of about 450 days.

However, later radial velocity observations by the CARMENES survey published in 2023 did not confirm a planet at this period, but instead found a different planet. This is a super-Earth or mini-Neptune (the discovery paper uses the term "sub-Neptune") with a minimum mass of 5.5 Earths and a period of 36 days, placing it within the habitable zone. A second planet candidate was also found, with a minimum mass of 9.7 Earths and a period of 113 days, but this signal could not be confirmed as having a planetary origin due to its similarity to the rotation period of the star.