What planet is nearest to our Solar system?

Question

What planet and how much lught years is far away and which constellation it is.???

Answer 1

Epsilon Eridani b is the closest, but there are a few other intriguing ones close by - Gliese 581 is 20.4 lightyears away, and it has at least two exoplanets near the habitable zone! Pretty exciting - they're terrestrial (rocky) planets, too!

Even closer to home, there are several simulations that show that there could be possible exoplanets around Alpha Centauri B - that's only four and a bit lightyears away, practically in our back yard!

Answer 2

The closest known extrasolar planet revolves around Epsilon Eridani (and therefore in the Eridanus constellation) 10.5 light years away.

It is the closest *known*  extrasolar planet, but may not be the closest. Our present technology only allows the identification of relatively large planets that orbit close to their stars. More distant from their star or smaller planets cannot be detected, so there may be closer extrasolar planets that we do not yet know about.

Answer 3

Planets which are not within our Solar System are called

Exoplanets and they orbit other Stars, not our Sun. The closest

star to us is within Alpha Centauri which is 4.5 Light Years away.

Scientists and Astronomers are searching the sky for other planets that are orbiting other stars right now. Normally those planets are not visable to us because we are blinded by the brilliance of their stars. However, recently some new methods of locating these planets have been implemented with great success. One of the new methods has

to do with studying a particular star for long periods of time and noting when something passes between that star and us (most likely one of that star's orbiting planets). I like to think of it as the distant planet causing the star to "wink" as part of its light is interrupted.

A complete discussion and listing of the Exoplanets discovered so far may be found at

http://exoplanets.org

The last time I checked there had been about 270 large Exoplanets discovered, named, and cataloged. Note: there does not seem to

be a good way to detect the smaller size exoplanets, and the method

mentioned above is only good for detecting the largest size exoplanets.

Answer 4

The closest known extrasolar planet (one outside the solar system) is in orbit around the star Epsilon Eridani, which is in the constellation of Eridanus. The planet has the name Epsilon Eridani b. It is 10.5 light years away.

Answer 5

  It must be planet "X"

Answer 6

Our solar system is made up of planets - do it doesn't really make sense to ask which planet is nearest. The planet closest to the sun is Mercury. The one farthest away is Neptune. It used to be Pluto but the International Astronomical Association 'demoted' Pluto to something else.

Answer 7

Star : Epsilon Eridani

Planet : Epsilon Eridani b

Distance from Earth : 10.4 Light Years

Magnitude : 3.73

Planet Mass : 0.86 Jupiters

Disc. Date : 2000