In 2015, her name crossed the borders of the solar system. An exoplanet discovered in 2002 orbiting the star Edasich (Jota Draconis) was named after the scientist. The planet's name was proposed by the 'Hypatia' student group at the University of Madrid.
The planet is about 101.2 light-years from Earth and, as the name suggests, the star it orbits is in the constellation Dragon.
Recent measurements have shown that Hypatia's mass is 16.4 times that of Jupiter. It orbits its star at an average distance of 1.275 astronomical units.
Why is this planet named after a female scientist? Its orbit has a very high eccentricity: 0.7124, the planet moves in a pronounced ellipse. By comparison, the eccentricity of the Earth's orbit is 0.0167. As we know, Hypatia was fascinated by conic sections, of which the ellipse is one.
An orbit with an eccentricity of 0 is a circle, between 0 and 1 an ellipse, with an eccentricity of 1 a parabola, and any value above 1 gives a hyperbolic orbit.
Hypatia is not the planet with the most eccentric orbit; HD 20782 is considered the most eccentric, with an eccentricity of 0.96.
On the NASA website there is a tool that allows us to visualise an orbit with any given parameters.
