HD 196885

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

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 110.9 light-years from the Sun. It is drifting closer with a radial velocity of −30 km/s, and is expected to come to within in 836,000 years.
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 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.