[1] It was the first hot Neptune discovered with certainty (in 2007) and was among the smallest-known transiting planets in mass and radius, until the much smaller Kepler exoplanet discoveries began circa 2010.

[2] Awohali was discovered in August 2004 by R. Paul Butler and Geoffrey Marcy of the Carnegie Institute of Washington and University of California, Berkeley, respectively, using the radial velocity method.

[13] In 2007, Michael Gillon from Geneva University in Switzerland led a team that observed the transit, grazing the stellar disc relative to Earth.

As it approached its present position, radiation from the star would have blown off the planet's hydrogen layer via coronal mass ejection.

[19] Observations of the planet's brightness temperature with the Spitzer Space Telescope suggest a possible thermochemical disequilibrium in the atmosphere of this exoplanet.

This result is unexpected because, based on current models at its temperature, atmospheric carbon should prefer CH4 over CO.[20][21][22][23] In part for this reason, it has also been hypothesized to be a possible helium planet.