astronomy

Gliese 163

Gliese 163 is a astronomy topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Gliese 163 rather than just read about it. In short: Gliese 163 is a faint red dwarf star with multiple exoplanetary companions in the southern constellation of Dorado. Other stellar catalog names for it include HIP 19394 and LHS 188.

Key takeaways

Gliese 163 belongs to astronomy; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Gliese 163 to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Gliese 163 from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Gliese 163 is a faint red dwarf star with multiple exoplanetary companions in the southern constellation of Dorado. Other stellar catalog names for it include HIP 19394 and LHS 188. It is too faint to be visible to the naked eye, having an apparent visual magnitude of 11.79 and an absolute magnitude of 10.91. This system is located at a distance of 49.4 light-years from the Sun based on parallax measurements. Judging by its space velocity components, it is most likely a thick disk star. This is a small M-type main-sequence star with a stellar classification of M3.5V. It has a relatively low activity level for a red dwarf of its mass, suggesting it is an old star with an age of at least two billion years. This star has 41% of the mass and radius of the Sun. It is spinning slowly with a projected rotational velocity of 0.85 km/s and has a rotation period of 61 days. The star is radiating just 2% of the luminosity of the Sun from its photosphere at an effective temperature of 3,460 K.

Planetary system In September 2012, astronomers using the HARPS instrument announced the discovery of two planets orbiting Gliese 163. The first planet, Gliese 163 b, is a super-Earth or mini-Neptune with an orbital period of 9 days, therefore far too hot to be considered habitable. However, Gliese 163 c, with an orbital period of 26 days and a minimum mass of 6.9 Earth masses, was considered to potentially be in the star's habitable zone, although it is hotter than Earth, with a temperature of 60 deg. C (140 deg. F). It has an eccentricity estimated to be about 0.03, giving it a fairly circular orbit. Evidence was also found for a third planet orbiting further out than c and b. In June 2013, it was concluded that at least 3 planets orbit around the star with a fourth planet being a possibility, and in a paper submitted to arXiv in June 2019, that and another planet were possibly found, thus giving the system a total of five planets, but only the first three are confirmed.

References

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Gliese 163

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Gliese 163 claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In astronomy, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Gliese 163 before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Gliese 163 ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Gliese 163

In research: Gliese 163 appears in astronomy research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Gliese 163 in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Gliese 163 is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Dorado, Gliese 163, Gliese and GJ objects, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Gliese 163 outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Gliese 163 in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Gliese 163 means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Gliese 163 out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Gliese 163 in simple terms?

Gliese 163 is a faint red dwarf star with multiple exoplanetary companions in the southern constellation of Dorado. Other stellar catalog names for it include HIP 19394 and LHS 188.

Why does Gliese 163 matter?

Because it connects several astronomy ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Gliese 163?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Gliese 163.