Discovery
Like the majority of known extrasolar planets, 55 Cancri d was detected by observing changes in its star's radial velocity. This was achieved by making sensitive measurements of the Doppler shift of the star's spectrum. At the time of discovery, 55 Cancri A was already known to possess one planet (55 Cancri b), however there was still a drift in the radial velocity measurements which was unaccounted-for.
In 2002, further measurements revealed the presence of a long-period planet in an orbit at around 5 AU from the star. The same measurements also indicated the presence of another inner planet, designated 55 Cancri c.
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