HIP 12961 is an orange K-type dwarf (about 0.69 solar masses, 3,901 K, 0.65 solar radii), 23.4 light-years from Earth. HIP 12961 b is a 0.36-Jupiter-mass companion, with an orbital period of 57.4 days, at 0.250 AU from its star, on an eccentric orbit (e ≈ 0.17), discovered in 2010 via radial velocity. The planet betrayed itself through the star's reflex motion — a technique that first revealed worlds around Sun-like stars in the 1990s and remains a workhorse of exoplanet discovery. The planet's marked eccentricity suggests past scattering events or perturbations from unseen companions.