The planet and its host star is one of the planetary systems selected by the International Astronomical Union as part of NameExoWorlds, their public process for giving proper names to exoplanets and their host star (where no proper name already exists).

It was discovered orbiting the star Tau Boo (HR 5185) by Paul Butler and his team (San Francisco Planet Search Project)[8] using the highly successful radial velocity method.

Since the star is visually bright and the planet is massive, it produces a very strong velocity signal of 469 ± 5 metres per second, which was quickly confirmed by Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz from data collected over 15 years.

Because τ Boo is hotter and larger than the Sun and the planet's orbit is so small, it is assumed to be hot.

In December 1999, a group led by A. C. Cameron had announced that they had detected reflected light from the planet.

[14] The temperature of Tau Boötis b probably inflates its radius higher (1.2 times) than Jupiter's.

Tau Boötis b's predicted Sudarsky class is V; which is supposed to yield a highly reflective albedo of 0.55.

The upper limit only of water below 2 parts per million (0.72% of that expected for solar composition) was estimated.