Gliese 317 c is a possible 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...

 approximately 50 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 in the constellation

Constellation

In modern astronomy, a constellation is an internationally defined area of the celestial sphere. These areas are grouped around asterisms, patterns formed by prominent stars within apparent proximity to one another on Earth's night sky....

 of Pyxis

Pyxis

Pyxis is a small and faint constellation in the southern sky. Its name is Latin for a mariner's compass...

. The planet was announced in July 2007 to be orbiting the 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

Star

A star is a massive, luminous sphere of plasma held together by gravity. At the end of its lifetime, a star can also contain a proportion of degenerate matter. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun, which is the source of most of the energy on Earth...

 Gliese 317

Gliese 317

Gliese 317 is a red dwarf star approximately 50 light-years away in the constellation of Pyxis. The star has an apparent magnitude of 12, an absolute magnitude of 12.2, and corresponding to visual luminosity of 0.1% Sun...

. The planet is a Jovian planet that is, at least, 83% the mass

Mass

Mass can be defined as a quantitive measure of the resistance an object has to change in its velocity.In physics, mass commonly refers to any of the following three properties of matter, which have been shown experimentally to be equivalent:...

 of 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,...

. The semi-major axis

Semi-major axis

The major axis of an ellipse is its longest diameter, a line that runs through the centre and both foci, its ends being at the widest points of the shape...

is unknown, relatively typical for unconfirmed planets. The eccentricity of the orbit is 42% and have orbital period of 7.4 years.