Hunt For Substellar Objects
According to Nelson & Angel (1998), 36 Ursae Majoris could host one or two (or at least three) jovian planets (or even brown dwarfs) at wide separations from the host star, with orbital periods of 10–15, 25 and 50 years respectively. The authors have set upper limits of 1.1–2, 5.3 and 24 Jupiter masses for the putative planetary objects. Also Lippincott (1983) had previously noticed the possible presence of a massive unseen companion (with nearly 70 times the mass of Jupiter, just below the stellar regime, thus a brown dwarf). Putative parameters for the substellar object show an orbital period of 18 years and quite a high eccentricity (e=0.8). Even Campbell et al. 1988 inferred the existence of planetary objects or even brown dwarfs less massive than 14 Jupiter masses around 36 Ursae Majoris.
Nevertheless no certain planetary companion has yet been detected or confirmed. The McDonald Observatory team has set limits to the presence of one or more planets with masses between 0.13 and 2.5 Jupiter masses and average separations spanning between 0.05 and 5.2 AU.
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