A Super-Earth or super-terran is a type of exoplanet with a mass higher than Earth's, but substantially below those of the Solar System's ice giants, Uranus and Neptune, which are 14.5 and 17 times Earth's, respectively. The term "super-Earth" refers only to the mass of the planet, and so does not imply anything about the surface conditions or habitability. The alternative term "gas dwarfs" may be more accurate for those at the higher end of the mass scale, although "mini-Neptunes" is a more common term.
CoRoT-2b is the second extrasolar planet to be detected by the French-led CoRoT mission, and orbits the star CoRoT-2 at a distance of 700 light years from Earth towards the constellation Aquila. Its discovery was announced on 20 December 2007. After its discovery via the transit method, its mass was confirmed via the radial velocity method.
Kepler-8b is the fifth of the first five exoplanets discovered by NASA's Kepler spacecraft, which aims to discover planets in a region of the sky between the constellations Lyra and Cygnus that transit their host stars. The planet is the hottest of the five. Kepler-8b was the only planet discovered in Kepler-8's orbit, and is larger than Jupiter. It orbits its host star every 3.5 days. The planet also demonstrates the Rossiter–McLaughlin effect, where the planet's orbit affects the redshifting of the spectrum of the host star. Kepler-8b was announced to the public on January 4, 2010 at a conference in Washington, D.C. after radial velocity measurements conducted at the W.M. Keck Observatory confirmed its detection by Kepler.
An exoplanet is a planet located outside the Solar System. The first evidence of an exoplanet was noted as early as 1917, but was not recognized as such until 2016; no planet discovery has yet come from that evidence. What turned out to be the first detection of an exoplanet was published among a list of possible candidates in 1988, though not confirmed until 2003. The first confirmed detection came in 1992, with the discovery of terrestrial-mass planets orbiting the pulsar PSR B1257+12. The first confirmation of an exoplanet orbiting a main-sequence star was made in 1995, when a giant planet was found in a four-day orbit around the nearby star 51 Pegasi. Some exoplanets have been imaged directly by telescopes, but the vast majority have been detected through indirect methods, such as the transit method and the radial-velocity method. As of 24 July 2024, there are 7,026 confirmed exoplanets in 4,949 planetary systems, with 1007 systems having more than one planet. This is a list of the most notable discoveries.
Kepler-10, formerly known as KOI-72, is a Sun-like star in the constellation of Draco that lies 607 light-years from Earth. Kepler-10 was targeted by NASA's Kepler space telescope, as it was seen as the first star identified by the Kepler mission that could be a possible host to a small, transiting exoplanet. The star is slightly less massive, slightly larger, and slightly cooler than the Sun; at an estimated 11.9 billion years in age, Kepler-10 is 2.3 times the age of the Sun.
A Kepler object of interest (KOI) is a star observed by the Kepler space telescope that is suspected of hosting one or more transiting planets. KOIs come from a master list of 150,000 stars, which itself is generated from the Kepler Input Catalog (KIC). A KOI shows a periodic dimming, indicative of an unseen planet passing between the star and Earth, eclipsing part of the star. However, such an observed dimming is not a guarantee of a transiting planet, because other astronomical objects—such as an eclipsing binary in the background—can mimic a transit signal. For this reason, the majority of KOIs are as yet not confirmed transiting planet systems.
Kepler-40b, formerly known as KOI-428b, is a hot Jupiter discovered in orbit around the star Kepler-40, which is about to become a red giant. The planet was first noted as a transit event by NASA's Kepler spacecraft. The Kepler team made data collected by its satellite publicly available, including data on Kepler-40; French and Swiss astronomers used the equivalent to one night of measurements on the SOPHIE échelle spectrograph to collect all the data needed to show that a planet was producing the periodic dimming of Kepler-40. The planet, Kepler-40b, is twice the mass of Jupiter and slightly larger than it in size, making it as dense as Neptune. The planet is also nearly thirteen times hotter than Jupiter and orbits five times closer to its star than Mercury is from the Sun.
Kepler-40, formerly known as KOI-428, is an F-type star in the constellation Cygnus. Kepler-40 is known to host at least one planet, Kepler-40b. The star is approximately 1.5 times more massive than the Sun, and is over two times its size; it was, at upon its discovery, the largest yet discovered with a transiting planet in its orbit. Kepler-40 was first noted as home to a possible transiting object by the Kepler spacecraft; the data on the system was released to the public. A team of French and Swiss scientists used follow-up data to determine the existence of the Hot Jupiter planet Kepler-40b, and later had their results published in a scientific journal on January 4, 2011.
HAT-P-32b is a planet orbiting the G-type or F-type star HAT-P-32, which is approximately 950 light years away from Earth. HAT-P-32b was first recognized as a possible planet by the planet-searching HATNet Project in 2004, although difficulties in measuring its radial velocity prevented astronomers from verifying the planet until after three years of observation. The Blendanal program helped to rule out most of the alternatives that could explain what HAT-P-32b was, leading astronomers to determine that HAT-P-32b was most likely a planet. The discovery of HAT-P-32b and of HAT-P-33b was submitted to a journal on 6 June 2011.
HAT-P-33b is a planet in the orbit of HAT-P-33, which lies 1,310 light years away from Earth. Its discovery was reported in June 2011, although it was suspected to be a planet as early as 2004. The planet is about three-fourths the mass of Jupiter, but is almost eighty percent larger than Jupiter is; this inflation has, as with the discovery of similar planets WASP-17b and HAT-P-32b, raised the question of what causes these planets to become so large.
Kepler-14b is an extrasolar planet in orbit around the primary star of the binary Kepler-14 system. It is currently the only planet known to exist in this star system. Kepler-14b is 8.4 times the mass of Jupiter and has a radius 1.14 times that of Jupiter, and it orbits its host star every 6.79 days. It was discovered by NASA-led Kepler mission, which noted the planet as a planetary candidate as early as March 2009, around the same time as the discovery of the first five planets discovered by Kepler. However, the team was unable to confirm the planet until extensive follow-up observations, as high-resolution imaging resolved the star Kepler-14 as a closely orbiting binary system. The Kepler team would have not noticed that Kepler-14 was a binary star based solely on initial radial velocity measurements, and found that if they had not realized this, their data on Kepler-14b would have been very inaccurate.
Kepler-14 is a binary star system targeted by the Kepler spacecraft. It is host to one known planet: the Jupiter-like Kepler-14b. The star system was identified by Kepler as a possible planetary host, but when imaging revealed that Kepler-14 was a binary star system and not a single star, the confirmation process became protracted. The stars are separated by at least 280 AU, and the stars complete an orbit around a common center of mass every 2800 years. Both stars are larger than the Sun. They are of similar absolute magnitudes; however, the primary star is brighter as seen from Earth.
Kepler-39 is an F-type main sequence star located in the constellation Cygnus. It is located about 3,500 light-years away. One known substellar companion orbits it, Kepler-39b.
Kepler-12b is a hot Jupiter that orbits G-type star Kepler-12 some 900 parsecs (2,900 ly) away. The planet has an anomalously large radius that could not be explained by standard models at the time of its discovery, almost 1.7 times Jupiter's size while being 0.4 times Jupiter's mass. The planet was detected by the Kepler spacecraft, a NASA project searching for planets that transit their host stars. The discovery paper was published on September 5, 2011.
Kepler-42, formerly known as KOI-961, is a red dwarf located in the constellation Cygnus and approximately 131 light years from the Sun. It has three known extrasolar planets, all of which are smaller than Earth in radius.
Kepler-138, also known as KOI-314, is a red dwarf located in the constellation Lyra, 219 light years from Earth. It is located within the field of vision of the Kepler spacecraft, the satellite that NASA's Kepler Mission used to detect planets transiting their stars.
Kepler-419c is a super-Jupiter exoplanet orbiting within the habitable zone of the star Kepler-419, the outermost of two such planets discovered by NASA's Kepler spacecraft. It is located about 3,400 light-years from Earth in the constellation Cygnus. The exoplanet was found by using the transit timing variation method, in which the variations of transit data from an exoplanet are studied to reveal a more distant companion.
Kepler-1229 is a red dwarf star located about 875 light-years (268 pc) away from the Earth in the constellation of Cygnus. It is known to host a super-Earth exoplanet within its habitable zone, Kepler-1229b, which was discovered in 2016.
Kepler-419 is an F-type main-sequence star located about 3,280 light years from Earth in the constellation Cygnus. It is located within the field of vision of the Kepler spacecraft, the satellite that NASA's Kepler Mission used to detect planets that may be transiting their stars. In 2012, a potential planetary companion in a very eccentric orbit was detected around this star, but its planetary nature was not confirmed until 12 June 2014, when it was named Kepler-419b. A second planet was announced orbiting further out from the star in the same paper, named Kepler-419c.
Kepler-419b is a hot Jupiter exoplanet orbiting the star Kepler-419, the outermost of two such planets discovered by NASA's Kepler spacecraft. It is located about 3,400 light-years (1040 parsecs from Earth in the constellation Cygnus.
