HATS-44 is an orange K-type dwarf (about 0.86 solar masses, 5,080 K, 0.85 solar radii), 446 light-years from Earth. HATS-44 b is a 0.56-Jupiter-mass companion, with an orbital period of 2.7 days, at 0.036 AU from its star, and an equilibrium temperature near 1,161 K, on an eccentric orbit (e ≈ 0.28), discovered in 2018 via transit. The inner world is a hot Jupiter — a gas giant hugging its star at a fraction of Mercury's distance — a class that forced astronomers to rethink how giant planets form and migrate inward.