astronomy

Gliese 433

Gliese 433 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 433 rather than just read about it. In short: Gliese 433 is a dim red dwarf star with multiple exoplanetary companions, located in the equatorial constellation of Hydra. The system is located at a distance of 29.6 light-years from the Sun based on parallax measurements, and it is receding with a radial velocity of +18 km/s.

Key takeaways

Gliese 433 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 433 to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Gliese 433 from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Gliese 433 is a dim red dwarf star with multiple exoplanetary companions, located in the equatorial constellation of Hydra. The system is located at a distance of 29.6 light-years from the Sun based on parallax measurements, and it is receding with a radial velocity of +18 km/s. Based on its motion through space, this is an old disk star. It is too faint to be viewed with the naked eye, having an apparent visual magnitude of 9.81 and an absolute magnitude of 10.07. This is a small M-type main-sequence star with a stellar classification of M2V. It is an older star with a rotation period of roughly 73 days and a below average activity level for stars of its mass. The star has 48% of the mass and 53% of the radius of the Sun. It is radiating just 3.4% of the luminosity of the Sun from its photosphere at an effective temperature of 3,445 K.

Planetary system Gliese 433 b is an extrasolar planet which orbits the star Gliese 433. This planet is a super-Earth with at least six times the mass of Earth and takes approximately seven days to orbit the star at a semimajor axis of approximately 0.056 AU. The planet was announced in a press release in October 2009, but no discovery paper at the time was made available. A study described in a 2014 paper by Tuomi et al. confirmed both Gliese 433 b and another candidate planet, previously detected in 2012, Gliese 433 c. Gliese 433 d, whose discovery was published in January 2020, is similar in mass to Gliese 433 b but orbits slightly further out, actually within the optimistic habitable zone of the star, but it is still too close to the star, and therefore too warm, to be inside the narrower boundaries of the conservative habitable zone. Gliese 433 c orbits the furthest out from the star. As of 2020 it is the nearest, widest orbiting, and coldest Neptune-like planet yet detected. It is also notable in having an unusually eccentric orbit for a large planet so far from its parent single star and other planets. A survey using the Herschel Telescope found an infrared excess around the star, indicating the presence of an orbiting circumstellar disk. This feature is unresolved but the mean temperature of 30 K puts it somewhere within a 16 AU radius from the host star.

See also List of star systems within 25–30 light-years Groombridge 34 A List of exoplanets discovered in 2011 - Gliese 433 b List of exoplanets discovered in 2014 - Gliese 433 c List of exoplanets discovered in 2020 - Gliese 433 d

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Gliese 433

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Gliese 433 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 433 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 433 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 433

In research: Gliese 433 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 433 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 433 is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Circumstellar disks, Durchmusterung objects, Gliese and GJ objects, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Gliese 433 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.

Ask Teacher Smith questions about this articleOpens your AI tutor with a question about “Gliese 433” →

Affiliate

Preply — study more efficiently by working with a personal tutor. 50% off.

How to study Gliese 433 in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Gliese 433 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 433 out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Gliese 433 in simple terms?

Why does Gliese 433 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 433?

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 433.