after characters of that novel: Quijote was the lead character; Dulcinea his love interest; Rocinante his horse, and Sancho his squire. In 2016, the IAU organized a Working Group on Star Names (WGSN) to catalog and standardize proper names for stars. In its first bulletin of July 2016, the WGSN explicitly recognized the names of exoplanets and their host stars approved by the Executive Committee Working Group Public Naming of Planets and Planetary Satellites, including the names of stars adopted during the 2015 NameExoWorlds campaign. This star is now so entered in the IAU Catalog of Star Names. Stellar characteristics According to measurements made by the Gaia astrometric satellite, Mu Arae exhibits a parallax of 64.0853 milliarcseconds as the Earth moves around the Sun. When combined with the known distance from the Earth to the Sun, this means the star is located at a distance of . Seen from Earth it has an apparent magnitude of +5.15 and is thus visible to the naked eye. Asteroseismic analysis of the star reveals it is approximately 10% more massive than the Sun and significantly older, at around 6.34 billion years. The radius of the star is 36% greater than that of the Sun and it is 90% more luminous. The star contains twice the abundance of iron relative to hydrogen of the Sun and is therefore described as metal-rich. Mu Arae is also more enriched than the Sun in the element helium. Mu Arae has a listed spectral type of G3IV–V. The G3 part means the star is similar to the Sun (a G2V star). The star may be entering the subgiant stage of its evolution as it starts to run out of hydrogen in its core. This is reflected in its uncertain luminosity class, between IV (the subgiants) and V (main sequence dwarf star stars like the Sun). Planetary system Discovery In 2001, an extrasolar planet was announced by the Anglo-Australian Planet Search team, together with the planet orbiting Epsilon Reticuli. The planet, designated Mu Arae b, was thought to be in a highly eccentric orbit of around 743 days. The discovery was made by analysing variations in the star's radial velocity (measured by observing the Doppler shift of the star's spectral lines) as a result of being pulled around by the planet's gravity. Further observations revealed the presence of a second object in the system (now designated as Mu Arae