WASP-19, formally named Wattle, is a magnitude 12.3 star about 869 light-years (266 parsecs) away, located in the Vela constellation of the Southern Hemisphere. This star has been found to host a transiting hot Jupiter-type planet in a tight orbit. WASP-19 is older than the Sun, has a fraction of heavy elements above the solar abundance, and is rotating rapidly, being spun up by the tides raised by the giant planet on a close orbit.
Nomenclature The designation WASP-19 indicates that this was the 19th star found to have a planet by the Wide Angle Search for Planets. In August 2022, this planetary system was included among 20 systems to be named by the third NameExoWorlds project. The approved names were proposed by a team from Brandon Park Primary School in Wheelers Hill (Melbourne, Australia), led by scientist Lance C. Kelly and teacher David Maierhofer and announced in June 2023. WASP-19 is named "Wattle" and its planet is named "Banksia", after the plant genera Wattle (specifically the golden wattle Acacia pycnantha) and Banksia (specifically the scarlet banksia Banksia coccinea) respectively.
Planetary system In December 2009, the SuperWASP project announced that a hot Jupiter type exoplanet, WASP-19b, was orbiting very close to this star and with the shortest orbital period of any transiting exoplanet known at the time.
References
Further reading Mancini, L.; et al. (2013). "Physical properties, transmission and emission spectra of the WASP-19 planetary system from multi-colour photometry". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 436 (1): 2–18. arXiv:1306.6384. Bibcode:2013MNRAS.436....2M. doi:10.1093/mnras/stt1394. S2CID 55455709.